Into the Fire
by MephistAgain
Summary: Lyanna left the Tower of Joy alive yet broken. After eleven years, Ned is unable to reconcile the shadow of her former-self she has become with the She-Wolf whose abduction spurred a rebellion and saw to the downfall of the Targaryen dynasty. What will it take to bring Lyanna back from the brink? And what if Westeros had not seen the last of the dragons?
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: So I lost access to my prior account (Mephist) and following the ending of GoT (SHUDDER) I felt compelled to continue on with this fic despite the fact it's been a hot minute. So here it is!

Background info - Story follows canon up to and including the Tourney at Harrenhal. Set 11 years following Robert's Rebellion (295AL). Picks up with Robert's visit to Winterfell but does not follow the books. Events from the books will be included, however.

Key differences to be aware of - Since it's set 11 years following Robert's Rebellion and not 15, everyone is 4 years younger. Ex. Ned is 32, Lyanna is 27, Robert is 32. All other characters will also be 4 years younger according to as they enter into the story unless otherwise specified.

* * *

When Ned thought back on that fateful tourney at Harrenhal, it somehow seemed another lifetime altogether and yet only the day before all at once. Brandon's quick wit and still quicker temper, his gray eyes blazing with the foolish pride of too many swiftly won tilts and too few real battles overcome. Their father's steady bearing and wisdom, the blood of the North flowing surely through his veins. Robert's booming laughter, all bawdy jokes and slaps on the back (or the rear, depending upon the company he kept). Lyanna's untamed countenance and ardent delight, slender fingers pale as they clutched the crown of winter blossoms in her lap. The Dragon Prince's violet gaze shining with something much more portentous than melancholy for once. And suddenly the sorrowful notes were drifting to him as though he were sitting in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths once more, amongst a crowd captivated by the keening melody Rhaegar Targaryen's skilled fingers coaxed from his lyre.

With difficulty Ned roused himself from his reverie, and yet the harp's song did not fade. Its voice floated through the air, quavering now and again as though the tale it told was too forlorn for even it to bear.

Yet he knew this particular strain was more than a memory, it was a protest. For it had only been a few hours before that a messenger had rode into the courtyard bringing word that the King of the Seven Kingdoms would be arriving ere long.

Steeling himself, Ned followed the dying music to its source. The door presented an obstacle which a decade had not seen him able to successfully negotiate. He laid his palm against its rough and unrelenting exterior.

"Lyanna."

The harp's last tragic note faded away into nothingness. Into silence.

"Lya," he attempted again, and this time there was sound. There was something.

And then the bolt slid back, the door swung inward, and Ned was met with the sight of a stranger. A woman stood facing him with dark curls and sloping features which should have been easily recognized as belonging to the sister he had last seen eleven years before, but Ned could not reconcile this diminished and solemn creature with the She-Wolf.

"I know why you are here," she spoke then, and the voice was Lyanna's. Deflated and ragged, much as it had been the day he had finally found her in the Tower of Joy, but Lyanna's nonetheless. Ned had fallen down to his knees before her that day, nearly choking on all of the relief, anguish, and contempt.

"I couldn't tell him not to come, Lya, he is the King." Robert had been planning the visit for years, but thankfully there always seemed to be something standing in his way. Namely, his love of Dornish sour and wenches, which, while there was no shortage of either in King's Landing, became increasingly difficult to procure the further one travelled North upon the Kingsroad.

Ned's words were met only by the animosity in the cold slate eyes of she who was once his wild and willful sister. "He is a murderer and a usurper. A crude beast. A-"

"King of Westeros, over you and I and everyone else, and you will not say such things. They are treasonous, Lyanna. Whatever ire you hold towards Robert-"

"Ire?" The word was spat as though the mere taste of it on the tongue was repulsive. He saw something of the woman she had been in her sheer fury, in the scorching intensity of her gaze. And then it was gone, snuffed out like the flame of a candle that had burnt itself down to the last strands of its wick and vanished, only to be replaced by an expression void of emotion. "You always loved him more, Ned." It was a whisper he barely had time to register before the door shut.

The heavy iron bolt slid into place and Ned shivered. He stayed there, waiting for more, for anything. For screaming or the sounds of things crashing against the walls. The utter stillness seemed louder than anything he could have imagined.

After a time, he forced himself to walk away and prepare for Robert's arrival.

* * *

"_She isn't well."_

"_She's never well, according to you! All of my letters unanswered. All of my gifts unreceived."_

"_Your Grace-"_

"_Balls to that, Ned! I'm no King in this, only a man forced to marry a hissing lion instead of the wolf I was promised!"_

"_Lyanna was not fit to marry, she was half mad with grief." _

"_And now? In eleven years nothing has changed?"_

"_Everything has changed. You have a wife and children now. You're King of all Westeros."_

"_It isn't enough. I need to see her."_

"_Let it be. Please, Robert. Let her be."_

The music and muffled voices faded behind Robert as he left the great hall behind him. _"It's either to the privy or piss my clothes, Ned. And I can tell you they don't like it when that happens."_ He'd been eying up a serving girl when he'd made the announcement, and poor dour Ned had compressed his mouth into a thin line and made no response. The Kingsguard had been easy enough to waylay, he didn't need anyone to hold his hand while he relieved himself.

How could he let her be when he was here now, so close? Closer than he'd been in eleven long years. If she was unwell, he would not disturb her for long, though he'd long suspected this was a ruse Ned was putting on to conceal her fragile hold on sanity. He'd said as much himself; _"half mad with grief"_, grief over the deaths of her father and eldest brother at the hands of the Mad King. Of that Robert had no doubt, it still brought his blood to a boil to recall the perverse nature of their end. What else could cause his brave and beautiful She-Wolf to shut herself away from everyone and thing she held dear for all this time? Oh, Ned had never said as much in his letters, but Varys had little birds in every corner of the Seven Kingdoms and beyond, and they twittered readily enough about Lyanna's self-inflicted quarantine from her kin.

The first servant he stumbled upon pointed him in the direction he desired with downcast eyes and a trembling hand, but he hadn't spoken _that _harshly. It was only that he was desperate to see her again, to touch her. To hear her lilting Northern accent, so feminine and clear.

The door loomed at the end of a hall, tall and firmly closed. Yet when he reached for the latch, it creaked and gave way easily under his touch. Darkness enveloped the room, stealing away his sight momentarily. The amount of wine he had consumed did not help either. He thought perhaps he'd gotten it wrong, made an errant turn somewhere along the way, but then he saw her.

The bed was in shadows. A mere sliver of moonlight shone in from the window and caressed one pale, perfect hand as it lay still against the covers. Robert gravitated to it like a moth to flame, shuffling through the blackness and staring hungrily upon her sleeping form.

She was older, her features had shed all of the girlish traits he remembered. Lips were fuller, lashes thicker, her cheekbones more pronounced, but still framed by the same fall of curls the colour of the rich chocolates Joffrey was always demanding. And her eyes, he knew, would be the same stormy gray when she opened them. Robert's gaze travelled ravenously down the length of her body, hidden by furs and quilts, and suddenly looking was no longer enough. He yearned to hold this forbidden figment of his tormented dreams.

Clumsily, he knelt down. His palms were sweating, but he took little notice of this as he gathered her much slighter hand between his own battle-calloused fingers. Her skin was supple and milky in the pale light of the moon and he had no difficulty envisioning all of it, naked and satiny against his body. How many nights had he awoken aching with desire for this woman who lay before him, craving her touch and laughter?

When he raised his bleary eyes to her face again, it was to find that she was staring back at him silently.

"Lyanna. My sweet and beautiful Lyanna." His voice cracked with raw emotion and he searched her eyes for any of the love he felt to be mirrored within them. All he found was a strange light, a flash of something sinister. Then she was screaming and launching herself forward, catching him entirely off guard and sending them both sprawling onto the floor.

"Murderer! Murderer!" She screeched breathlessly even as her slender fingers found his neck and wrapped deftly around it. "It should have been you! You should have died!"

Robert's wits were slow to come about him, but even the haze of alcohol he was fighting through could not deaden the sensation of Lyanna's nails biting into his flesh and constricting his airway. Blindly he struck out, and his fist connected with her shoulder, loosening her grip. It was enough for him to cough and suck air into his lungs, but she was not deterred, and it was at that point he realized she meant to kill him. She was completely mad.

"Lya!" Ned's voice cracked like a whip, but it was his strong arms which finally pried the She-Wolf away from Robert, her fingernails scoring his skin as she was dragged off.

"I hate you! I hate you!" She was still shrieking, struggling like a feral animal caught in a trap.

It took both Trant and Moore to get Robert back to his feet, where he stood sputtering and trying to catch his breath, the tinge of his humiliation colouring his already flushed face an even darker shade of purple. He couldn't be sure whether the knights had arrived in time to see Ned haul Lyanna off of him or not.

"Lya, hush. Enough." Ned murmured against the top of his sister's jerking head. His grip was firm but not bruising, and he felt her body quiver as the fight quietly went out of her. All that remained was a limp weight against his chest.

Silence reigned for a moment.

When Robert finally collected himself, his voice was hoarse but decidedly infuriated. "She isn't unwell, she's crazed. Keep her out of my sight." He turned and staggered out of the room, barking with intolerance at Ser Mandon Moore when the knight reached out to steady his King.


	2. Chapter 2

The visit hadn't been purely for the pleasure of seeing his old friend and companion again, much as Lyanna had expected. Robert Baratheon had toted his family, knights, and half the staff of the Red Keep to Winterfell – not to reminisce over fond memories with Ned, but to ensnare her dear unassuming brother. One marriage proposal and a Handship later, Ned was riding away from Winterfell with his two eldest children in tow.

Lyanna bided her time, waiting for the letter which undoubtedly would come from Ned for his lady wife, Catelyn. Every morning the mute serving maid whom had been her only reprieve from solitude for eleven years brought in a tray of food for her to break her fast, and every morning she watched the girl's dexterous movements expectedly, only to receive a shake of the head in response to the unvoiced question.

And then finally, a raven.

The bells began to toll mournfully, causing Lyanna's heart to leap into her throat and stick there painfully despite her efforts to quelch her fear. Below her window she could see people speaking in the courtyard, some frantically, some more indifferently.

A rush of cool air swept past her as she pulled back the door and her hair stood on end. There was no one in the hall.

"Hello? Is anyone near?" Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, ringing down the empty corridor hollowly. Just when she was beginning to despair of anyone hearing her, footsteps approached. A small dark head peered around the corner.

"What is happening? Why are the bells ringing?" Lyanna questioned.

The steely gray eyes staring back at her inquisitively did not waver for a second. "The King is dead. He went hunting and a great big boar got him."

Slowly, Lyanna's panic subsided to be replaced by a gaping pit of emptiness.

Dead, Robert was dead.

The Usurper. The slaughterer of her happiness.

"Are you my Aunt Lyanna?"

With growing unease, Lyanna realized this must be one of Ned and Catelyn's brood. "I'm afraid so."

Curiously, the little tomboy appeared to be scrutinizing her. After several long, appraising moments, she spoke again. "You don't look like a she-wolf to me."

Lyanna was acutely aware she should be affronted by the bald pronouncement, but she felt nothing. "And you don't look like a princess of Winterfell."

The door closed, a solid and reassuring bulk against her back as she leaned upon it.

Dead, and taking with him all of her loathing, all of her misery. Taking all that had kept her from becoming the madwoman every pair of lips in Winterfell and further still whispered her to be. And leaving her with a void.

* * *

"Dead."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means nothing."

"It means a wild pig had your vengeance."

The cool violet gaze which swept over Jon Connington was sufficient to make him hold his tongue from supplying any further coarse jests.

The Sword of the Morning regarded his companions soberly; the former Lord of Griffin's Roost sulking after the wordless reprimand from his silver prince, and Rhaegar sunken far within himself, only the roiling depths of those indigo eyes giving any indication of his inner turmoil.

What did he brood over; the treasonous slaying of his father, the brutal slaughter of his wife and innocent children, or the loss of his she-wolf? Was it the life of indefinite exile they were all three faced with?

As he watched his friend, Arthur could wager a guess it was both all and none of these things the Dragon Prince languished over. It was his responsibility in bringing them all about which had haunted Rhaegar day after day and night after night for eleven long years, filling his days with torment.

And though he stood yet loyal to the Targaryen prince, Arthur did not offer consolation or sympathize with Rhaegar's plight. If Elia Martell had only been enough, hundreds could have kept their lives.

The day Rhaegar had charged him to remain at the Tower of Joy along with Oswell Whent and Gerold Hightower after the Lord Commander had brought word of how out of hand Robert's rebellion was becoming was the first and only time Arthur ever argued with his Prince.

"_Our place is with you, we are the Kingsguard, not wet nurses." _

"_Your place is where I have need of you, and that is here."_

"_If you are going to fight a war, you will have more need of us by your side than standing uselessly outside this tower."_

"_When I have dealt with my cousin I will return."_

"_If you believed that you wouldn't be leaving us here to guard her."_

"_She must be protected."_

"_Let her go. Give her back, Rhaegar. Enough have died."_

"_You know it's too late for that now."_

"_This was a mistake and you know it."_

"_Keep her safe for me, Arthur."_

The bitterness of those words still left a foul taste in his mouth when he recalled them. Never had he resented his closest companion before, and yet at the time every fiber of his being had screamed that what they were doing was unequivocally wrong.

Eleven years had brought Rhaegar no solace, but it had brought for Arthur acceptance. Of the deeds he not could undo, the swords he could not stay, the words he could not retract, the orders he could not disregard, and of the lives he could not give back.

* * *

_They came to him in his dreams, not as they once had been, as he remembered them, but dilapidated and rotting versions of themselves. Dead and gruesome and condemning, always accusing him with their sunken eyes while their lips remained motionless and peeled back. _

_Sneering._

_The Mad King, the Dornish Princess, sweet little Rhaenys and the son he had held but a few times, the Warden of the North and his heir, Ser Oswell and Ser Gerold. _

_All of them waited in a loaded silence, daring him to apologize, to beg mercy, to defend his actions. They waited. And the longer they waited, the wilder his heartbeat became, thundering against his ribs until he felt it would burst. _

_Robert's war hammer slammed into his breast plate, compressing the metal, crushing his chest. _

_Rubies scattered into the waters of the Trident. They glinted, catching the sunlight as they sank below the surface._

"_..Lyanna..." _

_The name was a sigh upon his lips. The escape of his last breath. _

"_I'll wait for you," she'd promised._

_And then he was drowning, not in the river, but in his own blood. Dragon blood. _

_Fire and blood. Fire and blood and agony._

"_I'll wait for you."_


	3. Chapter 3

Lady Catelyn Stark was not a very strong woman. At least, not in her youngest daughter's eyes.

Arya resented the way her mother was always attempting to truss her up like Sansa; the pretty gowns, the ribbons in her hair, the curtsying and smiling.

But she was no lady. She was Arya Horseface, Arya Underfoot, the little she-wolf.

Catelyn Stark was a lady.

One day a raven brought a message and no sooner had Maester Luwin brought it to her than did all of the colour drain away from her mother's face. They were breaking their fast along with many others in the great hall.

Silently, Catelyn got up and left her children.

"What is it?"

"Hush, child. Finish your food," Maester Luwin urged solemnly.

"I'm no child." Irately, Arya climbed down from the table where she'd been seated alongside Bran. Bran, whose pudgy little fingers were covered in far more porridge than he had actually managed to eat, even with the aid of his nurse.

"Tell me what has happened, I know it's something," she demanded in her best grown-up voice.

When the Maester turned and went away quietly, Arya felt a queer ache beginning to build in her stomach. She left the great hall.

In the stables, the familiar and comforting scents of horses, hay, and dung greeted her. Something brought her to the stall her father's gelding usually occupied, but another animal stood in its stead. And for some reason this disturbed her deeply.

Arya swung open the door and chased the bay mare out, sending the animal away snorting in protest. She climbed into the straw and sat there, huddled in the corner.

In her chest something felt like it was dying. Breaking slowly.

He's never coming back. He's never coming home.

* * *

"_Promise me, Ned. Promise me." _

_His eyes had been so full, so full of grief and wretchedness and censure, and she knew it was all those that had died that he was thinking of in that moment. How it all could have been avoided. _

"_I promise." _

Lyanna opened her eyes to the sound of her brother's voice still fading into oblivion.

He had held to his word. He had returned her to Winterfell and sent Robert sniffing after some other bride to fill his halls with squalling babes.

And now Robert was dead and her brother was a captive.

Treason. They'd charged him with treason and imprisoned him.

But where Robert's death had left her empty, Ned's arrest choked her with malice.

Steadfast and honorable Ned.

Lyanna could see shock and dismay chase each other across Catelyn Tully's face when she entered the great hall to find the good-sister she had not lain eyes on in over a decade. She was quietly impressed by how little time it took the older woman to coach her features into something resembling civility.

"You've heard, then."

"We must call our banners."

"What?" The question was asked stupidly, as though Catelyn could not possibly have heard right.

"The Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North has been falsely accused of treason. We must call our banners."

"Are you mad? They hold my children as hostages!"

Lyanna was too incensed to take notice of Catelyn's scathing tone. She'd long since curled her hands into fists by her sides to still their trembling. "Need I remind you that the 'they' to which you are referring includes the man who ordered the slaughter of a girl of four and a mere infant?" Even now Lyanna could not give names to the children that had perished as a result of her love for their father. "All you have is the word of Lannisters that your children will not be harmed, but only dangled before you as insurance of your continued good behaviour for years and years to come. When do you think it ends, Catelyn? When do you think your children will be returned safely to you?"

She was struggling, Lyanna could see easily past to her thinly veiled terror, the inner conflict.

"Ned will be freed, Catelyn. And your children will return to Winterfell and to your arms. But not if you sit idly by and allow the Lannisters to dictate the terms."

While she did not need Catelyn's approval or permission to call their bannermen, Lyanna knew a singleness of purpose between Ned's wife and herself would go a long way in justifying their cause. She expected a lot from the Karstarks, Umbers, Boltons, Flints, Glovers, and others. A lot of criticism, distrust, and residual anger for the sons and brothers they had lost during Robert's Rebellion.

"They won't follow you."

"No. They will not."

But still the ravens went out.

* * *

The great hall was alive with conversation.

"You've said your piece, now let us get on with our drinking and wenching, it's a long ride back to Last Hearth." The Greatjon announced summarily over the ruckus, deep voice drowning out all others without effort.

"A great bloody waste of time." Someone else agreed, a Karstark perhaps.

"…shouldn't have gone south…" "…little and less that can be done about it." "…a bad situation…"

Lyanna heard all of these excuses and more besides and felt a rage burning deep within her core, building with each muttered word.

"I see something has gone amiss. Ravens were sent to all of the great and small houses of the North, yet I see no Northmen here. I see cowards with flimsy excuses."

"You dare to brand us craven? You who ran away from your duty to become a dragon's whore and brought upon us a bloody war?"

"Slut! She-bitch!" "…no better than a common whore!" "How many were slaughtered because you just couldn't keep your legs closed, harlot?!"

Their derision washed over her in waves, crashing higher with each new hurled insult, and Lyanna waited. Eventually the flow ebbed and still she was standing with flint eyes flashing defiantly.

"Think what you will of me, it changes nothing. Your overlord is still standing falsely accused of a crime any of you who truly know him know he is incapable of committing. His heir and daughter are still being held hostages. And if you will not take up arms in the name of the North, you are still spineless dogs little deserving of your titles and less deserving of my brother or any other decent man's respect."

What her declaration was met with was a wall of silence. Tension hung heavy in the stagnant air. Dozens of pairs of condemning eyes glared back at her.

"No one, man or she-bitch, will accuse the Umbers of cowardice." The Greatjon stood, nostrils flaring, his bulk easily towering above all else in the room.

Lyanna's gaze did not waver from his for one moment, and yet her breath had hitched in her throat.

"For the North!" He roared finally.

The hall erupted into shouts of approval which soon had all united into one glorious chant.

"For the North! For the North! For the North!"

* * *

All preparations had been made; forces from Deepwood Motte, Last Hearth, Karhold, the Dreadfort, Bear Island, and Hornwood, as well as some lesser houses were encamped just outside the winter town.

The hosts of the Tallharts, Cerwyns, and Ryswells will join up with them as they march south toward Moat Cailin, where men from White Harbour, Widow's Watch, and Flint's Fingers will be waiting along with Howland Reed's crannogmen.

Winterfell's defenses will be left in the capable hands of Ser Rodrik Cassel, whom Catelyn appointed Castellan after insisting upon accompanying the Northern army.

The Northern army led by Greatjon Umber. The decision had been left up to the Stark bannermen, and they had finally settled on the Greatjon after precious days spent in argument which had more than once led to physical altercation.

She could not be sure whether this was because they'd all grown tired of fighting (which was less likely) or because the Greatjon had bodily lifted two men above his head and knocked their heads together when they refused to stop their quarrelling (which was more likely).

Lyanna repeated the details rapidly in her mind; searing every face, every name, every impression she had gotten from these men she would be riding south with into her brain. She didn't trust them, and she knew without a doubt they did not trust her. Many of them she had known in her youth as being leal servants to her father, had eaten and laughed with them in the great hall. But much had changed since those days. They were as much strangers to her now and she must be to them after shutting herself away for eleven years.

But Ned needed them.

And just as he had once saved her from an unbearable fate, now she had initiated his salvation.

_"I promise."_

* * *

The stench was acrid, palpable; clawing its way into his nostrils, burning and blurring his vision.

Even after days there was no growing accustomed to it.

His leg no longer ached, though this troubled more than relieved him. The crisp white bandage Pycelle had wrapped around the wound was filthy, crusted over, and yet oozing something obnoxious at the same time. He could not be sure whether some of the smell was at least due in part to this.

He worried for Robb and Sansa. They had done nothing wrong and he should have been more comforted in the knowledge of their innocence, yet was not. Alone and at the mercy of lions while he languished somewhere far beneath the Red Keep, awaiting judgement.

No, not judgement. Punishment.

"_When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."_

But he had not won. He had not even come close.

All he had done was wander far, far away from the North. From everything he understood and believed in, and into this abysmal place, where taking a king's life was as easy as keeping his wineskin full. Where knowing was not what mattered, but what you did or did not do with the knowledge you had.

Eddard Stark had been a minor player attempting a major play in a game whose only rule was that there were no rules. He knew when to accept defeat.

But that did not mean he did not still hold a card in his hand.

"_Ned, I've changed my mind. About the girl."_

"_Daenerys Targaryen?"_

"_Let her rot in whatever forsaken corner of the Free Cities she's been packed off to by those Dothraki shits."_

"_She cannot be held responsible for the actions of a brother, committed before she was ever born."_

"_Rhaegar. Every night I kill him half a hundred times in my dreams. And still he rises."_

"_But those are dreams and Rhaegar is long dead. You slew him yourself. We burnt his body."_

"_Yes, he was dead and we burnt his body."_

"_You should rest."_

"_You think I'm delirious."_

"_No, I think you're drunk."_

"_Can't a dying man drink his fill without your nagging? Ned, listen to me. The buggering fire didn't burn down for three days. I watched it after you took the men on to Storm's End, I wasn't much good for anything else. I'll never forget the smell of that fire, Ned. When it finally burned down to embers, I looked. But there was nothing."_

"_Robert…"_

"_There was bloody nothing. No splinters of bone, no scorched armor, not even those fucking red rubies. What sort of fire doesn't just melt the flesh from a man's bones, but consumes him, Ned?"_

"_Wildfire."_

"_Aye, wildfire. But this was no wildfire. It burned red. Black and red."_

"_What are you saying, Robert?"_

"_Can't kill a dragon with fire, Ned. They'll all burn. It all burns. Fire and blood."_

"_Rest now."_

"_It was her name he whispered."_


	4. Chapter 4

"You take too great a risk, Rhaegar."

"Afraid of a few horselords?"

"Spoken like a man that has never faced a hoard of angry Dothraki screamers."

"I see no warriors here. I see men with barely enough life in them to lift their heads, let alone a sword."

"Enough."

Arthur obeyed the Dragon Prince's command with the decorum of someone who has been taking orders for the majority of their life, but it did not put him at ease. He knew Jon, despite his teasing words, was not thrilled with the idea of strolling inside the crumbling white walls they faced either. They were only three against an unknown number.

They had been following the red star for several days, ever since it had first appeared in the sky and bathed everything its light touched in an eerie crimson glow. The sight still unsettled Arthur, but in Rhaegar it had awakened a purpose he had not seen in the Targaryen prince in over a decade. It was as though the past eleven years had been spent in a sustained state of limbo and finally Rhaegar had roused himself.

No, finally Rhaegar had been roused.

The Sword of the Morning had hoped the news of the Usurper's death would elicit some reaction, some shaking off of the constant state of upheaval Rhaegar's mind resided in. But it had only worsened his self-disparagement.

Until the red star.

All he could assume was that it was the prophecy which prompted Rhaegar to chase after the fireball as it journeyed steadily across the sky. Arthur had prayed his friend's sudden preoccupation was not something to be concerned about, that Rhaegar had not awoken only to lead them into the desert and to their deaths in search of the Prince that was Promised. But the further they'd travelled into the wasteland, the more and more it had looked that way.

Then they'd come upon the pale city.

"What do they say?" Jon was asking of one of the Dothraki who was clearly demanding something of them.

"Lay down your weapons."

"Rhaegar," Arthur protested firmly, but it was to no avail. The leather swordbelt had already landed at Rhaegar's feet and his daggers soon followed.

Jon swore under his breath, but his arms soon joined his Silver Prince's on the dusty ground.

"This is madness." Arthur unstrapped Dawn from his back and set the blade down carefully in its scabbard. Once the rest of his weapons lay beside the greatsword, he glanced sidelong to Rhaegar. "And now?"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than did a girl appear behind the three haggard Dothraki men who'd barred their advance upon the broken gates.

Arthur could hear Jon's sharp intake of breath, and for his part he found it impossible not to stare. The lion pelt she wore across her shoulders could not conceal her scrawny frame, sun-scorched skin stretched taut over little more than bone. She was so very thin. And yet it was not her state of obvious malnourishment which caught and held the Dornishman's attention, but the new growth of fine silvery blond hair which sprouted from her head and the wide lavender eyes that were watching them speculatively.

"Name yourselves," she suddenly demanded, and her voice was strong despite her frail appearance. She spoke the common tongue.

"We seek no trouble here," Arthur supplied when Rhaegar seemed too absorbed to answer. He could tell the Dragon Prince's mind was racing, though his face remained carefully composed.

"You come here armed as though for war and expect me to believe you seek no trouble?"

"A man would be a fool to wander these parts unarmed."

"Swords and daggers cannot protect you against the heat."

"Khaleesi, I know who these men are," another, gruff voice purported.

Turning his attention to the weathered face of the balding man who stood beside the girl, Arthur tensed. He did not recognize the large figure, but the man's accent was decidedly Northern.

When the girl's lilac eyes peeled away from them and met those of her companion, she gave a curt nod.

"Jon Connington, former lord of Griffin's Roost in the Storm Lands, stripped of all titles and lands and exiled by King Aerys II following his defeat in the Battle of the Bells."

Jon snorted derisively. "You forgot about being rumoured to have drunken myself to death."

"I was getting to that bit."

Arthur felt the man's hazel gaze shift next to him.

"Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, former Kingsguard, but deserted that brotherhood when he left his post at the Tower of Joy prior the Battle of the Trident and fled into Dorne, where he's been suspected of being harboured all these years."

The conclusion that had been drawn regarding his disappearance caused the Dornishman's jaw to clench even now, so many years after the fact. But the man standing silently at this side was proof, more than enough proof that he had not deserted.

With a pensive glance his left, to the girl, the swarthy complexioned man continued on.

"Khaleesi, Rhaegar Targaryen, son of King Aerys II and Queen Rhaella, first of his name, former Prince of Dragonstone. And your eldest brother."

Following his introduction, a loaded silence stretched out as they all regarded each other steadily.

"Former Prince of Dragonstone?" Jon belatedly bit off, breaking the spell.

Rhaegar lifted a hand to silence his friend. "Daenerys." The name was like a song he'd long waited to sing upon his lips. "I'm pleased to finally meet you."

Arthur did not doubt the waif of a girl standing before them was Daenerys Targaryen. Her eyes were a lighter hue of violet than Rhaegar's and what little hair she did possess looked as though it had been spun from strands of light from the sun and moon combined. But it was more than the colour of her hair, it was the way it dusted her small head, soft and gossamer as a newborn babe's.

He had seen hair like that before.

"_You're staring."_

"_I was distracted."_

"_By?"_

"_Your hair. It's growing back quickly. We will need to dye it if we hope to avoid suspicion."_

"_You mean for me to hide."_

"_I mean for you to live. This is the only way, Rhaegar."_

"_Am I alive?"_

"_You breathe, your heart beats, you eat, you sleep. You're alive. And shall remain that way."_

"_While so many others do not."_

"_The war is lost. The siege at Storm's End has been lifted, Stannis sails to Dragonstone with a fleet to take the castle."_

"_Where my pregnant mother and brother have been shipped off."_

"_Stannis Baratheon is a hard man, but fair. He will see no harm come to the Queen or Prince."_

Arthur steeled himself against the shudder he felt making its way up his spine. He could not have known Queen Rhaella would die in childbed and her two children smuggled away to a life of exile in Braavos.

But now one of them was gazing back at him, her expression a mixture of consternation and reverence, and he wondered if Rhaegar saw it as well, that hair.

And then the Dragon Prince spoke, and Arthur knew.

"I believe we have much to speak of, little sister."

* * *

"Dragons."

"Three. Hatched in flames."

Surveying the night sky, Arthur was glad for the reprieve from the stifling heat that the setting of the sun had brought. Rhaegar had spent hours closed up in private discussion with his newly discovered sister, despite the Sword of the Morning's protestations at being forced away from his side.

"_Real_ dragons." Jon was skeptical, as Arthur might have been as well if it were anyone else who'd made the claim.

Rhaegar ignored him. "The fire did not harm her either."

"And Viserys?"

"Dead at the hands of the Dothraki Khal she was compelled to wed."

"Fucking Dothraki dogs," Jon spat, but Arthur could tell his ginger bearded companion had noted Rhaegar's strange detachment from the news of his brother's death as well.

"From what I could tell, he was walking a thin line between sanity and derangement. Perhaps it is just as well."

Jon was staring now, apprehension furrowing his brow. "Gods, Rhaegar, he was still your brother. Your only brother."

"And the Mad King was my father. It did not make him any less mad." Arthur could hear his friend's cold acknowledgement of his family's past, plagued by neurosis, in his voice.

"Dragons." The Dornishman repeated, calling their attention back to the conversation's roots.

"Aegon the Conqueror took Westeros with dragons."

"Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya took Westeros with three fully grown dragons. Daenerys is barely more than a child, and her dragons are newly hatched. Any mutt could easily tear them to shreds," Rhaegar informed Jon crisply.

"And the red star?" Arthur prompted.

The Dragon Prince turned his face upwards, bathing it in crimson. "It fades."

He did not lie, the star's once bright aura was dimming by the hour. Arthur expected there would not be much left of it to see by morning.

"Eleven years. We've waited eleven years while you brooded and tortured yourself over mistakes that cannot be undone, kicking about from one buggering Free City to the next, belonging nowhere and with no purpose. Then you lead us through a wasteland on a merry chase after some bloody falling star; we find your sister, we find dragons, and still you won't turn your sights toward home." Jon was seething, his patience finally at an end. He could not be blamed, he had endured it all in good humour; all of the aimless wandering in-between hiring themselves out as sellswords, Rhaegar's despondent fits when he would go for days on end without speaking a single solitary word, hundreds of nights spent sleeping under the stars (but more often the clouds) on the cold hard ground. It began to wear upon even Arthur at times.

"I have no home." Rhaegar's voice was distant, disconnected.

"You're wrong."

Arthur turned, his fingers closed instinctively around Dawn's hilt.

Daenerys had crept upon them on naked feet which had not made a sound.

"You are the rightful heir; King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Prince of Dragonstone. You are the blood of the dragon. And it's time to go home." Her words were a gentle hand, steering him back from the darkness of his bleak acceptance, back into the glow of determination.

The bleeding star cast an ominous glow over the pale ruins surrounding them, turning everything to fire and shadow.

"We will need ships," Daenerys advanced, taking her brother's silence as accord

Rhaegar's eyes had darkened to a perilous shade of indigo.

"We will need men."


	5. Chapter 5

Moat Cailin was alive and swarming with men, horses, and testosterone. Lyanna kept to her tent when possible, the shock of re-entering the world after so long spent locked away in her rooms still fresh, but its thin canvas walls could do little to deaden the sounds of gambling, drinking, singing, whoring, and fighting in the surrounding camp. The men were becoming listless, impatient for a battle, but they were at a stalemate. Ned was still imprisoned, Robb and Sansa still hostages, and the ultimatum that had been sent to the newly minted King Joffrey Baratheon was still unanswered.

Lyanna was beginning to fear their efforts would be in vain and the Northern army would break apart before it had even been blooded.

"Lady Lyanna, a man to see you."

Rising from her rigid cot, Lyanna sighed to herself. She prayed it was not Roose Bolton, who'd taken to visiting her lately to 'keep her from boredom'. His milky eyes and whispers made her skin crawl, and there was something malevolent, something cruel behind his bland features.

"Yes, send him in." She forced a level response.

The squat man that entered caused Lyanna to stare transfixedly until he bobbed his head and spoke. "Lady Lyanna, I don't suppose you remember me, but-"

"Howland Reed," she cut in, shaking herself from her stupor.

"Yes, my lady."

"Of course I remember you." Lyanna's heart warmed to see the small crannogman again. "I'm so glad you're here, truly glad."

"My lady," Howland began, and something in his earnest voice filled her with a sudden trepidation. "I wish it were under better circumstances. We received a message, not meant for us. But sometimes the ravens become disoriented in the marshes, you see. They get lost and we pick up messages from all over. Some mean more than others. I thought… I thought I should bring this one to you myself, Lady Lyanna."

The mired scroll he held out was small enough to fit entirely in the palm of his hand. She took it and unravelled the tightly rolled parchment with trembling fingers.

"Oh gods… Ned."

* * *

"_I saw Ser Gerold ride up."_

"_Yes."_

"_What news?"_

"_You're pacing. Sit down."_

"_Rhaegar, what news did he bring?"_

"_Please, Lyanna."_

"_Tell me. Is it Robert? Has he done something foolish?"_

"_Your brother, Brandon... He and some others rode to King's Landing. He went into the Red Keep and called for me to come out and die. The King had them arrested for conspiring to murder me and demanded that their fathers come south to answer to the charges."_

"_Is Brandon alright? We have to go there, we have to explain. It was a mistake, words spoken in anger, nothing more. Brandon will apologize, I'll make him apologize, Rhaegar."_

"_It's too late for that."_

"_No, it's not too late, we can leave now. We can ride through the nights, I won't slow you down. Is my father in King's Landing now? He'll know what to do."_

"…_Lyanna, they're dead. They're all dead... I'm sorry."_

"_Dead? …I don't understand, you said…"_

"_He had them all killed. He was never going to release them, he sent for their fathers so that he could watch them die as well."_

"_No! It was a mistake, he didn't mean it. Brandon didn't mean it."_

"_I'm sorry, Lyanna."_

"_How can they be dead? What happened? What happened to them?!"_

"…_I won't tell you that."_

"_You have to tell me. They're my family, you have to tell me!"_

"_Lyanna-"_

"_Tell me! Tell me what he did to them!"_

"_He forced your brother to watch as your father dangled over a fire in full armor. The more your brother struggled to reach his sword and cut your father down, the tighter a noose about his neck became. He strangled himself in his attempts and your father burnt alive."_

"_No… Oh gods, no... No!"_

"…_I am sorry, Lyanna… I never meant for this to happen."_

"_My father and brother are dead, and you are sorry?! …I hate him! I hate him and I hope he burns in the seven hells!"_

"_Someday he will."_

"_That day cannot come soon enough!"_

"_I know... I have to go, Lyanna. The Arryns, Tullys, Starks, and Baratheons have raised their banners in revolt."_

"_Who..? Ned? Is he alright? Please, tell me Ned is alive!"_

"_Yes, alive and winning battles for Robert's cause."_

"_But you're going to lead men against them… You're going to try to stop them, kill them…"_

"_I'm going to defend the realm."_

"_Rhaegar, you can't hurt him. Don't take him from me! Don't take him from me as well…"_

"_They're rebels now, Lyanna. I can't protect them."_

"_Take me with you!"_

"_I can't take you where I am going. Ser Gerold, Ser Oswell, and Arthur will stay with you. They'll protect you."_

"_Am I to be your captive here?"_

"_No! You have never been forced to stay here, nor will you be now. If you choose to leave, the Kingsguard will take you to your brother."_

"…_And bring an end to this madness…"_

"_It isn't about you or I any longer."_

"…_We should never have come here. This was a mistake... This was all a mistake."_

"_Is that what you truly believe?"_

"_How could I not?"_

"…_I'm sorry, Lyanna... I have to go now. I'm sorry."_

"…_I'll wait for you..."_

* * *

"We must turn back."

Lyanna ignored the vacant statement. Tears were still making wet trails down Catelyn's pasty cheeks, and she looked more an empty husk with her disheveled Tully copper hair and staring blank eyes than a woman at all. If Lyanna felt awkward with her feeble attempts at comforting the newly made widow, the Greatjon seemed entirely out of place. He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, visibly uncomfortable with the woman's grief.

"The rest of the houses must be informed," Lyanna supplied, offering the giant of a man an excuse to escape his discomfiture.

"Send word on to Maester Luwin, tell him we'll be returning," Catelyn's hoarse voice interjected again.

The Greatjon wavered near the tent's flap, stooped down in order to accommodate the small slit he must squeeze his hulking form through.

"You're being unreasonable, Catelyn. We have to go on, now more than ever." Lyanna aimed at empathy with her tone, but even she knew the most she could muster was pity. The heartache she could understand, with Benjen away at The Wall, Ned was all she had left of her family. And while she'd barely spoken with him over the past years, his presence had been there, surrounding her. Ned was every stone, every piece of crumbling mortar in Winterfell. Ned was the Godswood where he liked to go and sit and think while she'd made faces back at the weeping weirwoods, Ned was the great hall where they'd sat and feasted all of the lords camped outside this tent and he had fought to keep his straight, serious face while she'd pinched him under the table. Ned was nearly every untarnished memory she'd retained, and now even that was no more. Oh yes, the anguish she perceived only too well, but the acceptance was not something she was capable of comprehending. Ned was not just gone, Ned had been taken from them. The Lannisters had taken Ned away.

"They have my children!" She was shaking now, and Lyanna knew her resolve had been broken by the news of her husband's execution.

"And will still have your children if we return to Winterfell. Retreating will not raise Ned up from death, Catelyn, nor will it see Robb and Sansa back to you. Tywin Lannister has amassed an army at Casterly Rock and sent reavers ahead into the Riverlands to raid and pillage. He is going to go after Riverrun."

Lyanna watched doubt and refusal to believe flicker across Catelyn's features. "The River Lords have taken no stand against the crown."

"No, but they do stand between him and the North. And he knows your father is likely to side with us and raise his banners."

"What have we started?" Catelyn breathed, overcome by the magnitude of what her goodsister was telling her.

"Nothing," Lyanna asserted in iron tones. "It's what they started when they falsely accused Ned and took your children hostages. They've unjustly murdered the Warden of the North, Catelyn. They're slaughtering and raping and burning their way through the Riverlands. They must be stopped." She felt this with every beat of her heart, every fiber of her being screamed for justice.

"What should I tell the men?" The Greatjon challenged, losing patience with the back-and-forth.

"Tell them a Lannister always pays his debts," Lyanna supplied, smoky eyes meeting and holding Tully blues. "And this debt they shall pay for in blood."

* * *

They set out from Moat Cailin at dawn, leaving a contingency of four hundred men to safeguard the only sure path into the North.

The urgency to reach the Trident was felt by all; if the Lannister forces claimed the crossing they would be trapped on the wrong side of the Green Fork with no means of supplying reinforcements to Riverrun. With no way of knowing how old their information was concerning Tywin Lannister's whereabouts in the Westerlands, the pressure was even greater to move swiftly. The Old Lion could already be leading his army through the Riverlands.

But they were barely halfway to the Trident when word reached them that Jaime Lannister had led men easily through the Golden Tooth, destroying the defensive forces stationed there by Lord Vance and continuing on without incident to besiege Riverrun. As if that weren't bad enough, Tywin's army had been brought through the Mummer's Ford and up through the Riverlands, taking Raventree Tree by force and Harrenhal by surrender. They were now stationed at the Trident, effectively sealing the Northerners off.

"The Twins."

Lyanna turned a skeptical gaze toward her goodsister. "The Freys have not and will not declare for any side until a winner is obvious. They're opportunists, no better than vultures."

"Walder Frey has so many children he does not know what to do with them. A marriage contract may secure us the crossing."

"A marriage contract between who? Robb and Sansa are hostages of war, and even so, Sansa is betrothed to Joffrey."

"But Robb is heir, and he still lives," Catelyn maintained.

"It won't be enough."

"Arya as well, then. She is next in line."

Studying Catelyn, Lyanna attempted to gauge her seriousness. "Arya is a child. She will not come of age for another half a dozen years or more."

"We must try."

* * *

"What is this? You come here begging for my support and offer me empty promises in return?"

"We propose an alliance, a union of House Frey and House Stark. Robb is Winterfell's heir, thereby the new Warden of the North. Marry one of your daughters to him and she will be both well positioned and well provided for. Your grandchildren will rule over the North."

Walder Frey's pinched face turned sour. "Rule over the North? Is the North its own kingdom now? Ah, I see. And if this boy, this new King in the North, goes the way of his father? My daughters can't marry a headless corpse now, can they? Pah! You insult my house with this nonsense!"

"Arya, my daughter. She will marry one of your sons, grandsons, nephews, whatever you choose." Catelyn was becoming desperate, Lyanna could hear it in her straining voice.

"What good would that do? The other pup, the one the Lannisters have sunk their claws into, she stands to inherit should your King in the North lose his head," Walder Frey groused, bushy eyebrows drawn together in a scowl.

"I will marry."

"You, She-Wolf?" Lyanna felt bile rise in her throat as the cantankerous old lord's rheumy eyes openly appraised her from head to foot. "You could be as barren as the Iron Islands for all we know. That oaf Robert never managed to plant a seed inside you, and the Last Dragon got no more than a warhammer planted in his chest for his troubles with you. Why should I believe one of my stalk would have more luck?"

"I would think you would be the last man in this room to doubt the reproductive abilities of a Frey, Lord Walder." Ignoring the sniggers, some of which had come from the multitude of offspring Walder Frey had paraded in before them, Lyanna squared her shoulders. "Now either take the offer or leave it. We have a war to win."


	6. Chapter 6

They were still reviving themselves after their long trek across the Red Waste when two of Daenerys' bloodriders returned to the abandoned city she had names Vaes Tolorro with emissaries from Qarth. The merchant, the warlock, and the mysterious masked Asshai'i counselled Rhaegar and his sister that they would be most welcome in their city by the Qartheen, whom had been told of the dragons by the two Dothraki messengers.

Rhaegar was not best pleased that word had already been spread, but where the Dragon Prince was cautious, Daenerys was bold. The dragons; previously named Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal; were hers, and ultimately Rhaegar consented that Qarth, while perhaps unable to provide them with the army they would need, was a port and would be their gateway to other cities.

"All our lives Viserys and I believed he had died at the Trident. Ser Willem said we were the only Targaryens left living."

Arthur shifted his attention from Rhaegar's back over to where Daenerys had guided her silver mare up beside his mount. "Then you believed no differently from the rest of Westeros."

"What happened?"

"What did he tell you happened?"

"He said just as I walked into the flames and hatched my dragons, so too was he reborn in fire." When Daenerys saw she was going to get no more from the Dornishman than a nod of his head in agreement of the statement, she switched tactics. "You left your Kingsguard brothers at the Tower of Joy to die."

"I left them to find and protect Rhaegar, as we all should have been doing. As we were sworn to do," Arthur responded sedately. He could tell the game the girl was playing, and he would not allow her to raise his ire.

"But you didn't protect him. The Usurper slew him, hundreds witnessed his death." Daenerys was baiting him, her words a well-rehearsed story she had been told time and again. "They scavenged in the waters for the rubies from his crushed breastplate as he laid there. And now they call the spot where he perished the Ruby Ford."

But it was no story for the Sword of the Morning. He had been at the Ruby Ford when it was still an X on the strategic maps of both loyalists and rebels alike, not yet worthy of a name although the fate of the Seven Kingdoms would soon be decided there.

"Where were you?" Her question cut into his thoughts.

"Too late. I was too late."

"He was dead when you arrived," Daenerys surmised.

"The battle was over, won by the rebels. Rhaegar had grievously wounded Robert, but then Eddard Stark had turned up with reinforcements." Arthur's gaze was hard upon his friend's back again. "They'd built a pyre and set him on it. They lit it just as I came into view. I watched the flames grow. It must have been hours, hours that I sat there and could not look away from the fire."

"But he rose up." Daenerys was watching him, her features intent.

"Night had fallen. Still the fire was burning. And then he was before me, standing before me, alive. His hair had burnt away and there were black smudges all over his skin from the charcoal and smoke, but he was not scorched. He laid in the flames for half a day and was not harmed." Arthur stiffened his muscles, sat up straighter in the saddle. He had not meant to let the note of wonder come into his voice, but it had been there, just the same. He could not recall the events of that night without grappling with his belief system. Men did not rise from the dead.

But Rhaegar had, and for that he still had no explanation.

Daenerys relented in her inquisition, allowing her mare's pace to slow until she fell behind to ride beside her Bear again.

Arthur took no notice. He stared penetratingly at Rhaegar's back for long after, seeking answers he knew he would not find.

* * *

While they'd hosted Daenerys' ragtag company with tolerance for some time, Arthur could tell the Qartheen had not welcomed them into their city out of the kindness of their hearts. The dragons were a constant topic of conversation, a seemingly never ending swarm of people constantly waiting to see the creatures.

Rhaegar was uneasy, as was Jorah Mormont; Daenerys' protector, and Arthur could not have agreed more with the two men, who seemed to be at odds in all things except leaving the city as soon as was possible. He did not trust the exiled knight, but the man's motives seemed clear enough. Attaching himself to the Targaryen Princess was his best hope of ever returning to Westeros and having his titles and lands restored.

For his part, Arthur did his best not to cross paths with the man unless it could not be avoided. There were many things he could look past, but he could not abide a man who would sell others into slavery just to make a few gold dragons.

"None of these captains seem interested in taking a Dothraki khalasar aboard their ship."

"Can you blame them?" Arthur studied Rhaegar's mild but wavering countenance, noting his friend's mounting frustration, which rarely leaked through.

They'd been traversing the docks for hours, speaking with the captains of whatever merchant ships were tied up, and still had not managed to secure their passage west.

"Perhaps you can convince her to leave them here? They distrust the salt water and may refuse to board the ship even should we find a willing captain."

Rhaegar looked toward his sister and Arthur followed his violet gaze. "She will not be swayed. She says they are her people and will follow her to the ends of the earth if need be."

Daenerys stood at a stall alongside her Bear, who was holding a large brass platter up for her inspection. The two spoke a moment and then Mormont returned the platter to the stall's vendor and they walked away. But the vendor snatched up the platter and gave chase, and Arthur could see the man was harassing them, hoping to force a sale, when Mormont finally took out the purse he was carrying on Daenerys' behalf and made to pay for the platter. No sooner did the knight have the ware in his hands than did the vendor whip out a small and ornate wooden box, pressing it into the Targaryen Princess' grasp. Daenerys forced a smile at whatever the man had said and flipped back the lid.

Without warning, Arthur saw a white bearded man step forth and swat the box from Daenerys' hands with his gnarled staff.

Rhaegar began to move at the same instant Arthur had, but by the time Dawn was free from its scabbard at the Dornishman's back, the man with the white beard had struck again, this time smashing whatever had been in the box with the butt of his staff.

Mormont was cursing, the platter was rolling across the docks, and Daenerys' bloodriders had advanced with curved arakhs flashing.

Daenerys had put herself between the white bearded man and her Dothraki guardians before Arthur and Rhaegar could reach them.

"What is the meaning of this?" Rhaegar demanded, his own sword drawn.

"This man just saved my life."

Before anyone could say another word, the bearded man had lowered himself to ground, where he hunched on bended knee. "Your Graces, I apologize. I was only thinking of the Princess' safety."

Arthur could see that the Dragon Prince was staring hard, his disbelief written plainly on his face. "Ser Barristan?"

"Selmy?" Mormont echoed the perplexity even Arthur was feeling.

But there was no doubt when the man looked up that it was indeed Barristan the Bold kneeling before them.

"What are you doing here?" Daenerys broke the spell, seemingly unaffected by the same confusion that afflicted her brother, her protector, and Arthur himself.

"Magister Illyrio Mopatis sent me with three ships to return you to Pentos, Princess," Barristan supplied steadily. He had not yet risen.

"Why are you not in King's Landing?" Rhaegar questioned, regaining his senses.

"I was dismissed from service by Joffrey Baratheon."

Arthur could see what it cost his former fellow Kingsguard brother to admit these words, he knew because he felt the same shame and chagrin when he thought of his own believed desertion. "But the Kingsguard serve for life."

Barristan's cornflower eyes met the Sword of the Morning's and held. "Robert was a good knight, but a poor king." His focus shifted to Rhaegar. "If you will have me, I wish to serve whatever time I have left before the Stranger takes me under my true king."

* * *

It was the third day the ships Daenerys had renamed Vhagar, Meraxes, and Balerion had floated becalmed in the Gulf of Grief. While one of the merchant ships the Magister had sent to ferry them to Pentos was equipped with oars which could be deployed in the case of just such a situation, Rhaegar did not want to divide the small fleet. Any number of things could go wrong at sea and three ships at least were less of a target for pirates than one.

"They're slaves."

"They are the key to taking Westeros back."

"No."

"You said we need men. They are more than men, they are warriors. Ser Jorah says no army can stand against them, they fear nothing, not even death."

"That does not make them warriors, it makes them madmen. We all fear death."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"But you've already died and risen again."

"And now I fear it even more, knowing what it is to die. To know you are dying and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it. Even if the Unsullied were not slaves, I trust no man that does not fear death."

"Ser Arthur, what are your thoughts?"

"I agree with your brother, Princess," Arthur's response came automatically and without hesitation, not because Rhaegar expected him to agree, but because he did. Slavery was considered an abomination by the Faith, and any man that attempted to conquer the Seven Kingdoms with an army of slaves would never be tolerated as ruler.

"Ser Barristan?" Daenerys moved on to her last hope for support in the ship's cramped cabin.

"The Unsullied are not the answer, Princess."

Flustered by the disapproval her suggestion was being met with, Daenerys' cheeks began to burn. "If you are all aware of what the answer is, I would be only too happy if you might enlighten me."

"Daenerys." Rhaegar's tone was gentle, yet not patronizing, and Arthur could see he'd sensed his sister's embarrassment at the rejection. "We will find another way, I promise you."

* * *

"Why did no one notice? How long can she have been gone?"

"The last anyone recalls of seeing Meraxes was at dusk just before the sun set. A fog rolled in and must have prevented any sounds of their raising anchor and rowing away from reaching us," Arthur was forced to admit.

The Dragon Prince was pacing, his long strides taking him swiftly the length of Balerion's deck and back. "There is little and less we can do without a wind." He finally said, as though reasoning with himself.

"Even then, we have no way of knowing where to look, Your Grace. There are a number of ports she can put in at while we wait for a breeze to fill our sails," Barristan was quick to point out.

Rhaegar's face was grim when he replied, "Yes, but there is only one where she will find an army of men unafraid of death."

"You think she's bound for Astapor?"

"I would stake my claim to the Iron Throne on it."

Arthur's carefully practiced façade of self-assurance momentarily slipped, and he knew Barristan had caught his frown.

It was the first time he had ever heard Rhaegar wager a bet.

* * *

Astapor was burning.

The smoke had been spotted when they were still some distance out from shore, and it had only grown thicker and blacker the closer they'd sailed.

Arthur could see Meraxes bobbing gently where it rested at anchor in the harbour. He could also see the apprehension clouding Rhaegar's eyes.

"Find her," was the only order he gave when the dory they'd rowed from Balerion to the docks was tied up.

The ship's crew refused to follow them beyond the great pyramids that stretched along the bay into the blazing city and the Bear had of course slipped away in the night with his maiden fair when she'd made her escape. Jon and Barristan flanked out as they made their way through the deserted streets once past Astapor's unguarded gates, but Arthur remained by Rhaegar's side. Smoke billowed up from all structures that were not built of the crumbling red bricks which largely made up the city.

It was eerie how quiet everything seemed inside the walls of the city despite the fact parts of it were on fire. There were no sounds of fighting, no people screaming, no livestock bellowing.

And then Arthur heard it. Cheering.

Rhaegar veered in its direction, following the noise until they came to its source.

People, hundreds of people, perhaps thousands. And they all were chanting in a foreign tongue, each and every one at the same time so that countless voices became one voice. They blocked the street ahead, packed together so tightly that the path Rhaegar made ahead as he shouldered through was immediately filled back in, and Arthur had to shove and squeeze, struggling not to lose sight of the Targaryen Prince's silvery blond head. The crowd spilled out into a square plaza and still everyone was wedged in, no space left unfilled.

When finally they'd battled their way to the front, Arthur was astonished by the scene which greeted them. Beaten bloody and shackled to posts stood a dozen or more men, their once fine tokars little more than rags hanging from their bodies, and oiled hair stuck off at crazy angles. Beyond them a sleek and powerful army waited at attention, bronzed skin gleaming under the glare of the sun. And in the centre of it all Daenerys stood, Rhaegal and Viserion perched upon her shoulders while Drogon circled above, screeching and diving, whirling through the air.

Arthur's hand reached up for Dawn, but Rhaegar gave a shake of his head, his eyes never leaving his sister.

"Do you know what they are saying?" He inquired of his companion.

"No."

"Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains."


	7. Chapter 7

The Northmen took a vote, and while Lyanna found it difficult to swallow her protests, she watched with the rest as Roose Bolton took sixteen thousand footman and marched down the Kingsroad to challenge Tywin Lannister's army stationed at the Trident. She despised being in the Lord of the Dreadfort's presence, but her distrust of him was far greater than any qualms she had about his company, and she would have preferred to have him close by so that at least she could keep an eye to him. As it stood, he'd just ridden away with the majority of their host in tow.

Under the Greatjon's leadership, the remaining cavalry, bolstered by Frey and Mallister men, struck south for Riverrun, and along the way they were joined by additional forces from Seagard. They soon learned that after their fathers' defeat at the Golden Tooth, Ser Marq Piper and Ser Karl Vance had begun launching raids across the Red Fork to disrupt the supply lines which Jaime Lannister's siege at Riverrun was dependent upon. So great was the Kingslayer's self-confidence that he was now leading counter raids against Piper and Vance, frequently taking a few hundred men and riding out to attack the harassers.

And so the trap was set.

Sending a party flying Tully colours to lure the Young Lion away from the bulk of his army, the Greatjon then moved the rest of the cavalry into position. Rather than turn back and return to his siege camp when his outriders all disappeared, Jaime Lannister pushed on, striking after the fake Tully company. When he'd ridden directly into their clutches, Maege Mormont's men sounded their horns, and all was over for the vastly outnumbered and outmaneuvered Lannister force.

Along with the Kingslayer, near a hundred knights and a dozen lords bannermen were captured, including Lord Westerling, Lord Quenten Banefort, Ser Garth Greenfield, Lord Regenard Estren, Ser Tytos Brax, Mallor the Dornishman, Willem Lannister, and the Lannister cousins Cleos Frey and Tion Frey. But the victory did not come without loss; Lord Rickard Karstark's sons Eddard and Torrhen had both died.

With the Lannister host besieging Riverrun now leaderless, the Northmen quickly regrouped and launched an attack on the still unsuspecting siege camps the following night. In a state of utter unpreparedness, it took only a few hours before the camps were demolished and Riverrun was liberated.

"Lord Bolton was forced to retreat back to the Twins, we're yet uncertain how many returned with him," a messenger had informed them soon afterwards.

"The Old Lion will not advance north of the Trident and leave his flank open for attack, especially not now that what's left of his siege force is retreating back to the Golden Tooth. He can easily defend Harrenhal," the Greatjon declared with confidence.

Murmurs of assent filled Hoster Tully's great hall. "And we hold his son hostage."

"While my boys are no more than feed for the maggots."

Lyanna turned toward Lord Rickard, noting Catelyn's sympathetic Tully eyes on the Karstark. "The Lannisters shall pay for their deaths, my lord."

"We have Lannister hostages aplenty, I say we show the Old Lion what happens when he meddles with the North," Lord Rickard spat.

"You forget they yet hold Robb and Sansa at King's Landing, Lord Rickard," Catelyn put in, voice gentle despite her obvious concern for the wellbeing of her children.

"Are your children's lives to be held in higher regard than the rest of our sons then, Lady Stark? My boys died fighting for _you_. They deserve justice."

Catelyn's face closed at his bitter tones, all traces of empathy vanishing. "Do not place your sons' deaths at my feet, my lord, I wielded no weapon against them."

Lyanna lost her patience. "Jaime Lannister and the other captured men will remain our hostages. For now they are a strong bargaining chip and ensure the safety of the heir to Winterfell and _your_ liege lord. None of them shall be harmed."

"Are we to be ruled over by women now?" Lord Rickard demanded in outrage.

The Greatjon brought his fist down on the long trestle table they had all gathered around with such violence that Lyanna swore she heard the aged wood splinter. "The Lannister men are not to be touched. The time will come for justice for your boys, but that time is not now."

Lord Rickard jerked up from his chair and strode out of the room, taking half a dozen similarly disgruntled Karstark men with him.

"Balon Greyjoy has declared himself King of the Iron Islands and Renly Baratheon has amassed an army at Bitterbridge with the might of Highgarden standing behind him, naming himself King," Lyanna supplied, hoping to bring the conversation back in hand. They had far more pressing matters to be dealing with than dissent amongst their own bannermen.

"If the rumours of Joffrey's illegitimacy are true, that would put Stannis next in line for Robert's crown, not Renly," Catelyn reasoned.

Lyanna shrugged her shoulders. "But no one has had word from Stannis since he returned to Dragonstone and he hasn't enough men to back him in taking a stand against either Renly or the Lannisters."

"Our quarrel does not lie with Renly. Perhaps if I spoke with him, I could make him see that our causes are allied and bring him to our side," Catelyn suggested.

"And what of your King in the North?" Ser Stevron Frey put forth with a keen smirk.

"We will bend the knee to no southron lordling. We fight for the North, a free North," the Greatjon interjected firmly. The other Northerners in the room voiced their agreement.

But Catelyn would not be so easily deterred. "He may yet be content to rule the other kingdoms."

Lyanna was doubtful, but they could not take on the might of Casterly Rock, King's Landing, and Highgarden. "Ned took on a ward after the Greyjoy Rebellion."

"Balon Greyjoy's only living son, Theon, yes." Catelyn eyed her goodsister with suspicion.

"Is he here?"

"What do you want with him?" The Greatjon questioned.

"Send him as an envoy to Pyke to bring terms to his father. We have no interest in the Iron Islands, if they want their freedom, let them have it. It makes no difference to us, and their Iron Fleet could strike the Rock and take Tywin Lannister's seat out from under his nose and leave him stranded at Harrenhal with no hope of further support."

"Theon will betray us, he is Ironborn," Catelyn insisted.

"Nevertheless, we must make the attempt. We don't have the resources to fight a war on three fronts alone."

There were mutterings as the Northern Lords discussed their options.

"Find the Greyjoy whelp and bring him to me," the Greatjon eventually ordered. "Lady Stark, my son will personally escort you to Bitterbridge to treat with Renly Baratheon."

* * *

"Ah, another visitor. I do believe I must be popular in the North."

"For all the wrong reasons, I'm afraid to tell you."

Regarding the filthy, bruised man sitting in the muck his tight bonds prevented him from rising from, Lyanna found she was unimpressed. So this was the Kingslayer. This was the man that had done exactly what she had dreamt of doing to the Mad King from the moment she had been informed her of her father's and brother's awful ends. This was the man that had stolen that satisfaction from her.

"Forgive me for not standing and bowing, my lady, but I'm afraid my leash is a little restrictive."

"Please, keep up this act of false bravado if you like, but I know you are afraid, Ser Jaime."

"Afraid? Sweet Lady Lyanna, you needn't worry about me, I know no one would dare see any real harm come to me when my sister still holds your King in the North hostage in the Red Keep. I have every confidence in my safety here," he drawled, and had the audacity to smile languidly. "I'm actually quite impressed by the show of Northern hospitality, Lady Stark stopped by earlier to ask after my wellbeing as well. Perhaps I should suggest bringing women to war to my father, it does seem to make things altogether more… interesting."

"I should think your father will be pleased to know you are enjoying your time here as a captive, though I'm not sure that was his intention for you when he gave you control over half his army and told you to take Riverrun."

Jaime chuckled, but Lyanna refused to be baited. "May I ask, to what do I owe the _real_ pleasure of this visit, Lady Lyanna?"

Crouching down before him, Lyanna paid little mind to the mud seeping into the hem of her gown. "I was curious to look on the last face Aerys ever saw."

"I must tell you all of the Kingslayer slights have grown quite old to me. I hope you have something fresh to add to the mix."

"And what slight should I give to the man who slew the Mad King and put an end to the war?"

Green eyes narrowing, Jaime studied her features carefully a few moments. "You envy me," he decided in the end, the realization changing his mocking countenance.

"You seem surprised, Ser. I trust you haven't forgotten how he executed my father and brother as well as several other lords and their sons. You were there, after all." Lyanna's tone had grown hard, accusing.

"Aerys' blood may stain my hands, Lady Lyanna, but you only have yourself to blame for your brother and father, so do not condescend to me over where that fault lies," Jaime hissed, no longer carefree smiles and taunting laughter. "Mine was the last face Aerys Targaryen saw, but yours was the face that started a war which claimed the lives of thousands."

Lyanna's hand flashed out and caught him across the cheek, snapping his head to the side. Her body was quivering, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

And he could see he'd hit his mark.

"Slap me all you like, you can even toss in a few punches and kicks for good measure, maybe it will make you feel better for a time. But we both know you'll walk away from here, and very soon it will all come back to you. All the men that died because you ran off with the Dragon Prince instead of marrying Robert, the poor-" Jaime broke off as her fist connected with his jaw this time. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, and then continued on as though nothing had happened. "-sod. I wonder, do you remember them all, Lady Lyanna? Let's see, there are your brother and father, of course. And Jeffory Mallister, Kyle Royce, Elbert Arryn, and all of _their_ fathers."

Lyanna struck him again, and this time he spat a mouthful of blood before going on.

"Lord Fell, who died at the Battle of Summerhall. Lord Cafferen at the Battle of Ashford. His head was sent to Aerys by Lord Randyll Tarly, did you know that? Jon Connington was stripped of all lands and titles and exiled when he failed Aerys at the Battle of the Bells, so I suppose you may as well take the blame for that as well. Ser Gerold and Ser Oswell died right outside your Tower of Joy, along with Ethan Glover, Willam Dustin, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull, and Mark Ryswell. Perhaps you even heard them take their last breaths? Ah yes, and then of course there are Princess Elia and her children, Rhaenys and Aegon."

"That was not my doing! _Your_ Lord father ordered them slaughtered!" Lyanna screamed, her self-composure crumbling. She no longer cared who heard them, tears were leaving hot trails down her cheeks. "They didn't have to die! They did nothing wrong!"

Jaime fixed her with a level gaze. "No, my lady, they did nothing wrong. But you did. And in the end Rhaegar paid for it all with his life. But I have often wondered - was it worth it?"

Reeling away from him, Lyanna stumbled toward the keep, suddenly dizzy and in a cold sweat. Her stomach heaved, and she willed it to hold its contents, at least until she reached her room. The world was spinning wildly, her breathing was laboured.

Lyanna slammed the door shut and collapsed back against it, but her panic did not subside and the illness did not dissipate.

Not this time.


	8. Chapter 8

"This is utter folly."

"This is right. You heard them, Rhaegar. You heard them calling to me."

"You owe them nothing. Release the Unsullied from your service and return to Pentos with me, we will raise a proper army, Daenerys. An army of free men."

"They are free, I have freed them. And there are plenty of other slaves waiting to be freed. I will not turn my back on them."

"And what do you suppose will happen when you bring your Unsullied to Yunkai or Meereen, which have long been slave cities, and demand that they be released from their bonds? They will close their gates to you, they will hire sellswords, and they will do whatever it takes to rid Slaver's Bay of you."

"Then I will sack the cities."

"Little sister, the families that have built their legacies on the backs of the slaves will put every man, woman, and child in their cities to the sword before they will ever surrender to you. You will cost far more lives than you will save."

"I have to try."

The Sword of the Morning shifted his weight uneasily as he watched the Targaryen siblings. Since their first meeting at Vaes Tolorro, this was the closest he had witnessed them come to an argument. And neither appeared prepared to back down.

"And home?" Rhaegar prompted, calm voice belying his agitation.

But while he was a perfect statue, quiet countenance impenetrable, Daenerys was a fluttering bird, unable to keep still, her irritation at his disapproval obvious. "Meraxes, Vhagar, and Balerion cannot carry the Unsullied, they number too greatly. We will march to Meereen and commandeer ships to bring us to Pentos."

"You've said the Unsullied are free men. What if they do not wish to sail to Pentos?"

"Then I will not force them, I will sail on to meet you."

"Meet me?" Rhaegar's brow lifted as he waited for his sister to elaborate.

"You must go on to Pentos and raise your army. Magister Illyrio will fund it, as Ser Barristan has said. If the Unsullied agree, we will join our forces there, and if they don't, I will come on with Ser Jorah and my khalasar and we will sail to Westeros together," Daenerys supplied, and the corner of Arthur's mouth twitched as he considered how much thought the Targaryen Princess had clearly put into her plan before bringing it to her brother. She had learned from her last attempt, evidently.

"I will not abandon you here to sack cities and liberate slaves."

Arthur felt for the Dragon Prince in that moment. He had found his only remaining family after eleven years living in exile from his own realm, and while his voice remained stern, his eyes were softening, his shoulders becoming less square. He was afraid to lose his newly found little sister.

"I am not the child you see me as. I was not raised in a castle, and I have known no home, no place that I have ever felt truly safe or happy. But I have married and loved and stood before the dosh khaleen in Vaes Dothrak, and I felt my son move inside me. I have survived attempts on my life, I have lost both my husband and my child, and I have been born again in fire. I am Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains. I am Daenerys Stormborn and I am the blood of the dragon." Daenerys closed the distance between herself and her brother, taking his hands firmly into her own much smaller ones. "And I will free the slaves of Yunkai and Meereen before I sail to Pentos to join you."

Rhaegar's expression remained stoic as he towered above her, a clash of violet eyes. And then Arthur saw it, the chink in the Targaryen Prince's armor. His resolve was breaking.

"You realize your Bear was exiled for slaving."

"You don't trust him, I can tell."

"Do you?"

"Ser Jorah has been my loyal friend and supporter."

"Ser Barristan will accompany you henceforth."

Daenerys weighed the stipulation a moment before giving a soft nod of consent.

"Right now the Seven Kingdoms are at war, but with only unreliable merchant reports to go by, we have no way of knowing how long the rebellion will last. Our window to strike is therefore small. You must meet me in Pentos and be ready to sail by the next full moon. Crossing the Narrow Sea is a battle in and of itself. And by all accounts, little sister, winter is coming."

* * *

If it were not for the seriousness of the matter they discussed, Arthur may have found the disbelief written plainly across Jon's features amusing. But with the fate of a realm hanging in the balance, he subdued his humour. Somewhat.

"The Golden Company."

"Would you like me to spell it for you next?" Rhaegar inquired mildly.

"Perhaps his hearing is not what it used to be."

"It used to be terrible."

Arthur hiked a shoulder up. "Then everything seems in good order."

"I said, 'SHALL I SPELL IT FOR YOU, JON?'"

Jon's ears were burning. "You two are contemptible, carrying on at such a time."

But the Sword of the Morning knew their companion was as pleased as he was to see Rhaegar in such unusually high spirits. Without a doubt this had everything to do with the news they had received upon reaching Magister Illyrio Mopatis' sprawling manse; that the famed Golden Company was sailing for Pentos even as they sat there, and would arrive in a matter of a week or two dependent upon weather.

"Were they not under contract with Myr?" Jon went on.

"Yes."

Brow furrowing, Jon drained his wine goblet. "If they broke that contract to come here, how can we be certain they will not break their contract with us?"

"They are a company of exiles and the sons of exiles. Others may be able to give them all the gold and riches in Essos, but only I can give them Westeros back." Rhaegar's smile, however, was grim, Arthur noticed. He knew then that despite his newly formed optimism at their chances of actually reclaiming the Iron Throne, Rhaegar was aware it could all come at a cost. The men of the Golden Company had, at the end of the day, all been exiled for a reason.

* * *

"I told her by the full moon."

"It's been only a few days more."

"A few days too long. The men are growing restless, Ser Harry is demanding to know when we will sail."

"Since when does a sellsword make demands of a king?"

"King by right, but not king in name. The Seven Kingdoms are divided amongst five kings already, and until I sit the Iron Throne, all Ser Harry Strickland has is my word that he and his men will be pardoned. And words are wind to a sellsword. They cannot fill his purse."

"How much longer will you wait?"

"Two days. If there is no sign of her then, you will take a small fleet to Slaver's Bay and retrieve her and her dragons."

Arthur's spine had straightened, coming to attention at this statement. "And you?"

"Will sail on as planned with Jon and the Golden Company. When you cross the Narrow Sea, make land on the southern peninsula of Shipbreaker Bay. Forces will be left at Rain House to accompany you to wherever we are at the time." Rhaegar had given this some consideration.

"She has Ser Barristan, send Jon to fetch her. My place is with you."

"Arthur."

"Jon is more than capable of the task."

"Arthur."

He could feel every muscle in his body tensing; stomach clenching, jaw tightening. "My place is with _you_."

"Are you defying me?"

Arthur drew a determined breath. "If that is what it takes."

Rhaegar was watching him with an intensity that made him begin to sweat. The Dornishman in him was ashamed. "I need you to go and bring my sister back safely to me. Do not let this come to something we will both regret. You have been my truest friend, Arthur, and you will do this for me."

"You ask too much this time, Rhaegar."

"I only ask what I must."

* * *

Arthur exchanged a troubled glance with Ser Barristan before asking the obvious question. "Banished? Why?"

"For betraying my trust and selling information regarding me to the Usurper in the hopes of gaining a pardon."

"Is this true?"

"It is, Ser."

"Why did you not speak of this to Rhaegar before we left the Princess in Astapor with a traitor?"

"I was not certain at the time that it was Mormont who had been supplying the information to Lord Varys."

"And now?"

"He has admitted to it."

While he was not surprised by Mormont's betrayal, Arthur was both disappointed in and suspicious of his Kingsguard brother for not bringing the matter to their attention earlier. But the knight had in all likelihood saved Daenerys' life that day at the docks in Qarth. One sting from the manticore inside the small box she had opened would have been enough. He decided to defer to Rhaegar's judgement, which meant keeping a close eye to Ser Barristan in the meantime.

"Where is Mormont now?"

"It hardly matters." Daenerys' tone was icy, but Arthur could tell the treachery had wounded her pride. She'd put far too much faith in her Bear, and in the end, he'd bitten his maiden fair.

"Very well. We will set sail on the morrow, will that be enough time for you to prepare, Princess?"

"I cannot leave Meereen yet, it isn't stable enough."

"My lady, your brother is crossing the Narrow Sea as we speak," Arthur attempted to reason.

"And Astapor has fallen under the leadership of a butcher, Yunkai has hired sellswords, and legions from New Ghis have made land. I cannot abandon these people in the midst of an uprising." She was overwhelmed, and the empathetic eyes Ser Barristan turned towards his Dornish counterpart told Arthur this had been an ongoing struggle.

"You've freed the slaves, Princess. They must do for themselves now." Every moment wasted in Meereen was another moment they would not be sailing to meet Rhaegar.

Daenerys was shaking her head. "No, they need me. I must stay here until these matters are resolved, I'm sorry, Ser Arthur."

"My lady-"

"I have given you my answer, please do not question it."

Arthur was digging deep, fighting to hold onto the last shreds of his composure. "Your brother needs you, Daenerys. He is leading a force of ten thousand to take back _your home_."

Raising her piercing lavender gaze, Daenerys glared at him. "And when I have restored order to Slaver's Bay, I will follow him west, Ser. Until that time you would do well to recall to whom you are speaking. Leave me."


	9. Chapter 9

They'd reclaimed much of the lost Riverlands. Raventree and Stone Hedge were taken back amidst the retreat of Lannister forces, and Darry had also been won back for its young lord Lyman Darry; only to be sacked by Gregor Clegane and the entire household, including Lyman, put to the sword. This sent the Greatjon into a rage, and leaving a small force to bolster Riverrun's defenses, he led the Northmen to Golden Tooth and there defeated Jaime's regrouped Lannister army, killing its new commander Stafford Lannister along with Rupert Brax. What remained of the Lannister force limped back to Lannisport, and after taking a wound during the battle, Stevron Frey died three days later.

The keep of Ashemark fell next, easily sacked and its castellan killed. The Greatjon sent Rickard Karstark and Galbart Glover to raid along Westerland coast while he continued on with the bulk of the Northern host to capture the gold mines at Castamere, Pendric Hills, and Nunn's Deep. Maege Mormont and her daughter rounded up thousands of livestock from the countryside and drove them back towards Riverrun, hoping to starve out the Lannisters at Casterly Rock and Lannisport.

Upon hearing of the North's victories, the Old Lion marched his army away from Harrenhal, leaving it garrisoned by two hundred men, many of which belonged to the sellsword company the Brave Companions, led by Vargo Hoat. While Catelyn's brother and the heir to Riverrun, Edmure Tully, blocked Tywin Lannister's forces from crossing the Red Fork, Roose Bolton brought his host across the Ruby Ford and on towards Harrenhal. Seeing the approaching enemy force which greatly outnumbered them, the sellswords turned on the castellan the Old Lion had left in charge, throwing Harrenhal's gates open to the Bolton men. The Lannister garrison was executed, and Vargo Hoat raised to Lord of Harrenhal for his aid.

Response to their proposed alliance with the Kraken had come in the form of an attack on Moat Cailin, and Catelyn had returned from her attempt to treat with Renly with a curious she-knight and the news that the youngest Baratheon brother had been assassinated in cold blood after a meeting with Stannis had ended with the outcome of eminent battle.

"Stannis has lain siege to Storm's End."

"Let him. If they wipe each other off the face of the map, all's the better for us. We have enough to deal with as it is." Lyanna had not meant to snap at her goodsister, but with Moat Cailin lost to them, so too was any hope of a quick retreat to the North if the need arose. There had also been reports of Ironborn landing on the Stoney Shore.

"But if Renly's men take up his cause, he will have twenty-five thousand and nearly the entire Royal fleet at his disposal," Catelyn continued, unperturbed. "Not to mention if the Tyrell's side with him."

"And he will take them all and attack King's Landing. Stannis wants the Iron Throne, he is more than welcome to it. He will draw Tywin Lannister back to the capital and we can focus our attention on the North, as we should be."

"And have you a care for what will happen to Robb and Sansa should Stannis sack the city?"

"If we lose the North, it won't matter what happens to Robb or Sansa. We will be stranded in the Riverlands with krakens, lions, and stags surrounding u-"

"Enough of your yammering," the Greatjon bellowed suddenly, deep voice reverberating through the stale air in the tent. A messenger had entered, unbeknownst to the two sparring woman, and was waved over. "What is it?"

"My lord, it's Winterfell. The Ironborn have taken it and put it to the torch. They hold Torrhen's Square and Deepwood Motte as well."

Lyanna's breath hitched as she stared wordlessly at the travel-worn man. Winterfell lost?

"My children; Arya, Bran, and Rickon, what of them? What's happened to them?" Catelyn was demanding, but it all sounded very far away to Lyanna.

Whatever response the messenger gave, it seemed a murmur to her ears, which had filled with a roaring as she worked to swallow the hard lump that had formed in her throat. Winterfell; her home, her sanctuary. Ruined, burnt. Gone.

"I told you! I told you he would betray us!"

Lyanna felt rather than saw Catelyn's hand connect with her cheek. Her skin stung, but inside she was numb.

* * *

"What do you mean, gone?"

"He is not with the other captives, my lord."

"Jaime Lannister is being escorted south under guard to King's Landing, where he will be exchanged for my children."

The tent fell to silence as all eyes turned to Catelyn Stark.

"Please say you jest, Lady Stark," Rickard Karstark intoned dangerously, the first to regain his senses.

Catelyn looked, but it was as if her Tully blues were seeing straight through him. "No, my lord, I take the lives of my children deadly serious. And I will see them returned to me."

Lyanna knew what she wasn't saying. Robb and Sansa were all she had left now. Thinking of the stick of a girl outside her door the day the news of Robert's death had reached them, Lyanna frowned softly. She hadn't known Ned's children. She wondered what her brother must have thought of her, locked away, pretending that life was not going on just outside her room. How hurt he must have been that she was not more grateful for the family she did have left. For his family.

"Gods, woman, what have you done?" The Greatjon uttered in disbelief.

The other men had begun to mutter, and one voice broke away from the rest. "I'll tell you what she has done. She's thrown away the only leverage we held over the Lannisters," a Frey man declared, though Lyanna could not recall his name.

"And what of my children? I have lost my Eddard and Torrhen, and Harrion is even now held hostage by the Mountain. And still I have had no justice!"

The other bannermen were grumbling their assent, the volume of noise in the tent increasing by the moment.

"Justice! Justice!" The Karstark men took up a chant.

"Take her away from here!" The Greatjon ordered, but even his deep and penetrating roar was difficult to hear above the swell of arguing that was taking place.

It was all coming to pieces. All falling apart.

* * *

The next morning they'd awoken to find Willem Lannister and Tion Frey dead, murdered by Karstarks. While Lord Rickard claimed it was justice for not only his sons, but all the other Northmen that had died at the hands of the Lannisters, the Greatjon was forced to take his head for disobeying a direct order. The others who'd been involved in killing the Lannister boys were hung, and the rest of the men that had come south from Karhold defected.

It was then that the news of Balon Greyjoy's sudden death reached them. Evidently many of the Ironborn were returning to the Iron Islands to choose their new king, leaving parts of the north sparsely defended.

They'd struck North, but with Gregor Clegane now holding Harrenhal and the Trident after retaking it from the sellsword captain Roose Bolton had left in charge there, the only way back to the Kingsroad was by crossing the Green Fork at the Twins. Bolton had met them there with what remained of the infantry after being set upon by the Mountain as they'd crossed the Ruby Ford.

* * *

"We have an accord."

"We had an accord. Now Winterfell is in ruins. Tell me, why would I consent to marry my daughter or son off to the Starks? Lords of no more than a heap of rubble and ash."

"Winterfell will be rebuilt," Lyanna asserted. She had to believe this.

"Pah, empty promises again. Can I feed and clothe this sorry lot with promises, She-Wolf?" The Late Lord Frey was sneering, slack lips pulled back over yellowed teeth.

"Are you going back on your word, Lord Frey?" The Greatjon demanded, losing patience.

"My word?" Walder Frey's face curdled. "The terms were that a son of mine would marry the girl that was left in Winterfell, dead now I believe. Your King in the North is still held hostage by the lions, and now you've managed to lose what little sway you did hold over them by somehow misplacing the Kingslayer. As for the She-Wolf, well, her fertility is still in question."

"My brother will marry one of your daughters," Catelyn put forth of a sudden.

Edmure's face was a mask of horror. "What?"

She turned determinedly to her brother, and Lyanna watched the silent plea pass from one pair of Tully blues to the other. "For me. I need you to do this for me."

Walder Frey was watching all of this transpire with an air of smug satisfaction, and it was obvious he derived a sick sort of pleasure from witnessing others' despair.

"Do I get to at least choose?" Edmure finally inquired glumly.

"No," came the simple, mocking response.

Riverrun's heir gave a resigned nod, but it was his sister that Lyanna was intent upon. She knew this was an attempt at retribution on Catelyn's part, but whether the Northmen would choose to accept it, she wasn't sure. For her part, she felt no ill will towards her goodsister. The woman had released Jaime Lannister in a state of grief and out of desperation to save her only remaining children's lives.

It was she that had sent Theon Greyjoy to his father, brimming over with details of how poorly defended the Northern Houses had been left. She was keenly aware of the bitter glares many of the men had been throwing her way. While they hadn't placed her under guard as they had Catelyn, they might as well have for how much an outsider she had become. Lyanna still sat in on the war councils, but she no longer offered suggestions or opinions. She knew they would only be met with a cool disdain. She was there in the capacity of representative of House Stark in name only.

* * *

"One would think you would be happier it is not you sitting up there instead of Edmure."

Lyanna repressed the shiver she felt coming on as Roose Bolton lowered himself into the chair next to chairs. His thin, papery voice had caressed her ear as he'd seated himself, overly close for her liking. "He looks to be enjoying himself, I'm not sure I could compete with that amount of joy," she forced herself to respond.

"Lady Lyanna, always so serious. It is a wedding celebration, you realize."

"My home is being presided over by Ironborn, Lord Bolton. My niece and two nephews have been killed. Forgive me, but I do not see much worth celebrating."

His smile was sardonic as the jovial music died away to be replaced by the first strains of the Rains of Castamere. "Surely that will not be the case for much longer."

Lyanna sat in a stiff silence, refusing to make eye contact until Lord Bolton took his leave of her. The song was coming to an end, and she turned toward the new couple as a hush fell over the hall. Edmure was completely engrossed in his unexpectedly pretty and blushing bride, but beside him Walder Frey was watching the mostly drunken Northerners with approval. He gave a discreet nod, Lyanna noticed, and she glanced in the direction of the band. She assumed he was giving them permission to continue with their music, but they began to put away their instruments.

Perhaps it was time for the bedding ceremony, then.

"You Northmen came here, to my home, and accused me of not being a man of his word," Lord Frey announced without warning, his reedy voice carrying well throughout the quieted room. "But I say, you are not men of your word, my lords. You promised me my daughter would wed the King in the North. But now you have no North." He shifted in his chair, turning to his new goodson. "And I must be appeased with you." Snorting to show just what he thought of that, Walder waved a hand. "Which reminds me. We have a special guest."

Uneasily, Lyanna slanted her eyes towards a door that had opened to the right. A litter carried by two Frey guards was bore into the hall, and upon it sat a body dressed in rich gray brocade. A wolf's head with lolling tongue had been sewn to the corpse's shoulders, and perched upon its skull was a golden crown.

"Perhaps you are familiar with him? The King in the North."

For a moment nothing happened. Everyone was caught off guard, their wits slowed by drink or simple shock.

"What is the meaning of this?" The Greatjon hollered as he rose abruptly to his feet, albeit unsteadily.

"The Lannisters send their regards," came the only reply, though it was not from Walder Frey. Roose Bolton stood in the doorway the mutilated king had been brought through, but for once his whispery words were heard by all.

Catelyn began to wail, her shrill cries penetrating every corner of the hall. Before she had made it two paces towards her son's disfigured remains a feathered bolt had lodged itself in her chest, sending her sprawling.

Lyanna's head snapped up to where the musicians had been playing, and though they still stood there, where once they'd held harps, lutes, drums, and pipes, now each man was aiming a crossbow. The doors had all been barred during their preoccupation with Walder Frey's speech.

And then there was utter chaos.

She heard the snaps as the triggers on the crossbows were pulled, releasing the tension on the strings and launching their deadly projectiles.

A storm of bolts flew into the crowd of unprepared and unprotected Northmen. There were yelps of pain, shouts of fury, and chairs crashing as men fell to the ground. Tables were overturned, but there was nowhere for the Northerners to go, no escape from the quickly reloaded crossbows. Frey guards charged forward from the shadows they'd been lurking in, swords slashing with malicious intent. With no weapons to use, the Northmen snatched whatever was close at hand, throwing dishes, goblets, anything and everything at their assailants.

Regarding it all in a kind of detached daze, Lyanna refused to believe this was actually happening. They had renegotiated, they had reached new terms. They were going north to take back Winterfell.

Winterfell.

Something struck her shoulder, spinning her around, and she tripped over her chair. Lyanna's head cracked against the edge of the table as she fell, her body going limp and strangely numb on the floor. Her eyes were open, but her line of vision was such that all she saw were the rafters. She thought she heard Edmure yelling, but it was difficult to tell one voice from another with the hall so full of the sounds of men dying.

As the corners of her vision darkened and blurred, Lyanna just let go.

_I'm so sorry, Ned…_


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: First and foremost, to avoid any confusion, in this story character ages are as follows**

**Ned Stark- 32 (b.263) **

**Robert Baratheon - 32 (b.263)**

**Lyanna Stark - 28 (b.267)**

**Rhaegar Targaryen - 36 (b.259)**

**Daenerys Targaryen - 11 (b.284)**

**Catelyn Stark- 32**

**Robb - 13**

**Sansa - 10**

**Arya - 7**

**Bran - 5**

**Rickon - 2**

**Jon Connington - 34 (b.261)**

**Arthur Dayne - 36 (b.258)**

**To clarify a few things that have been brought forward in reviews - **

**Ned takes Robb with him to King's Landing precisely because he is the heir to Winterfell and if Ned is going to be serving Robert as his Hand, Ned will be relying on Robb to govern the North in his stead. But keeping in mind Robb is only 13, his training in how to preside as Warden of the North is far from complete at this point. Therefore Ned takes him to continue to impart what knowledge he can and also to expose Robb to the workings of the rest of the realm. Bearing in mind, Robert has been Ned's steadfast friend for years and Ned has no reason to fear for his children's lives, despite not precisely wishing to leave Winterfell and travel to the capitol. **

**Daenerys is only a child by our standards, yes, and it's difficult to imagine one so young being married off and expected to bear children. But this practice was fairly common in Medieval times and given that she is only 13 at the beginning of the books, I feel that it is more than plausible that she is also quite young in this story. Because I adjusted the timeline from 13 years since Robert's Rebellion to 11, that affected everyone's ages, and unfortunately it made Dany younger than I would have preferred, but I didn't feel I could change her birth date. It would have made things too complicated. **

**Lyanna was 17 by the time the Rebellion ended. Since then, she's been living a life of self-inflicted isolation. She doesn't know Theon Greyjoy, she didn't witness his upbringing in Winterfell. She knows there is a risk he will side with his father when she sends him to the Iron Islands, but it's a risk she feels she must take given the circumstances. Robb also made this decision in the books. No character is infallible. They all make mistakes, or they wouldn't be very interesting to read about. **

**Lastly, I invite anyone who has any questions or is confused as to anything going on in this story to either PM me or leave a review. I'm only too glad to do what I can to explain things, and this is merely my interpretation of the events and characters in this series. Anyone is welcome to disagree with me on points, and anyone is also welcome to stop reading if they don't find my writing to be interesting or if it seems 'ridiculous' in anyway.**

**Thank you and I apologize for the endless A/N. **

* * *

It was more of the same each turning of the sun. By day the Meereenese struggled to carry on with life; many of the freed slaves having had to revert back to serving their former masters or any who would take them on as a means of putting food in their bellies. By night a portion of the slaving families who now went by the name the Sons of the Harpy murdered the Unsullied who patrolled the streets, the freedmen who shaved their heads in symbolises of their shaking off of the ilk of old Meereen, or any others in Daenerys' service.

Perhaps worse was that the dragons had grown wild and uncontrollable, leading to the need for their containment in the fighting pit beneath the palace. While a group of Unsullied were able to capture Rhaegal and Viserion, Drogon escaped, killing several of the warriors in the process.

Astapor had fallen to the Yunkish hired sellsword companies of the Long Lances, the Company of the Cat, and the Windblown. They'd put thousands of freed slaves to the sword and sent the rest back into slavery. Escaped or fleeing Astaporians had brought the bloody flux to Meereen with them, infecting hundreds with the disease.

And then the merchant Xaro Xhoan Daxos had arrived from Qarth with thirteen ships and an ultimatum. Take the ships and leave Slaver's Bay for Westeros, or Qarth would join forces with Yunkai and move against Meereen.

"The Shavepates beg me to stay, they say all those who have served me will be murdered by the Sons of the Harpy if I leave."

"The Sons of the Harpy will murder freed slaves whether you stay or go. They have been killing people nightly from the start," Arthur reasoned, doing his level best to remain calm. He was unaccustomed to having to constantly keep his anger in check, but since coming to Meereen it had become a daily ritual. Wake up, bite tongue.

The look Daenerys shot his way was pure vexation. "That should not make it acceptable behaviour, Ser."

Arthur inhaled deeply before continuing. "Men murder men. Whether it is acceptable or not, Princess, it is an unfortunate reality which you must come to accept. If the Meereenese respected your rule here, they would also respect the laws you have made."

It was possible Ser Barristan would have had better luck convincing her of this, but he was stationed outside the door to her chambers, as he often was. The Dornishman inferred this was as a result of the old knight's admission to having been privy to Mormont's spying and not at first coming forward about it. It certainly was not because Daenerys preferred his company to Ser Barristan's.

"Do you mean to tell me when Rhaegar claims the Iron Throne that all murders in Westeros will cease to occur?" The Targaryen Princess challenged.

"There will always be those who choose to live outside the bounds of the law. If a city, or realm, has no respect for its ruler, then there will be a much higher instance of this."

"And everyone will respect Rhaegar's rule."

Barely suppressing an eye roll, Arthur remained silent.

"You think he is so much better than me," Daenerys hissed. She'd risen from the chaise she had been lounging on, and closed the distance between them with quick and determined steps.

"I have known Rhaegar most of my life, Princess, while I have only recently come to know you."

"And did Rhaegar make mistakes?" She demanded.

Arthur felt his jaw tighten. "Many."

Daenerys gave a satisfied nod. "And so must I," She breathed, her ire all but forgotten.

Dipping his head to meet her gaze, Arthur hesitated briefly before he spoke, "He needs you."

"No." She smiled, but it was cheerless. "You don't think he needs me. You think he needs you."

The Sword of the Morning started when the Dragon Princess lifted her slender fingers to his cheek.

"But you're wrong. He is a dragon."

* * *

The merchant and his offering were sent away. Qarth landed ships full of fighting men in Yunkai, joining their forces to those of New Ghis and the sellsword companies. The attacks on the Unsullied and freedmen grew nightly. Attempting to bring the Sons of the Harpy under control, Daenerys took children from the Meereenese families of more dubious loyalty under the guise of making them Cupbearers. Still the killings continued, and the children came to no harm.

Despite his frustration at her refusal to sail for Westeros, Arthur felt for her. Slavery was an abomination long since done away with in the Seven Kingdoms, but in Essos it was accepted. Common. He understood her sympathy for the slaves, but she either could not or would not see that what she was doing was making things far worse. Daenerys may say she was staying for the benefit of the Meereenese, but Arthur knew it was her own foolish pride which kept her. She was unwilling to accept defeat.

"Impossible."

"But if he is able to bring Meereen ninety days of peace, of no more murders, I would be condemning more people to die if I refused him."

"If he is able to put a stop to the killings, then it would stand to reason he knows far more of the inner workings of the Sons of the Harpy than he has let on. Rhaegar would never allow you to marry the perfumed dolt."

"Rhaegar is not here. And if it will stay the Sons of the Harpy, it is an offer I must take seriously."

"It is an offer you must give no consideration to, Princess. Your place is not here, as Queen of Meereen, it is in Westeros with your brother."

"Where I will be his queen."

This stunned Arthur into silence for a moment. Her lilac eyes were searching his face for any proof she had come to the correct conclusion.

"That is the Targaryen tradition. Brothers wed sisters," she went on, prodding for an answer.

"I am aware of the tradition." But he was not aware of whether this was Rhaegar's intention or not. His marriage to Elia had been a necessity when Queen Rhaella failed to produce a daughter to which he could be wed. For his part, Rhaegar had never spoken of what his thoughts on marrying a sister might have been, except to declare with a bitter certainty that it was this incestuous tradition that had seen madness run so rampant through his ancestors. Of this the Dragon Prince was convinced.

Daenerys was becoming impatient with his lack of reaction. "Do you deny this is his intention?"

"Whatever his intentions, the fact remains that as of yet you are too young to marry."

"I cannot imagine with the age gap already between us that it will make any difference whether I am a few years older or not."

Arthur gave a shake of his head. "Then you are wrong, Princess. Rhaegar would never expect you to wed himself or any other man at your age."

"I have already been married, Ser," Daenerys reminded him.

"Yes. An unfortunate circumstance your brother would give much to undo."

"He's spoken of it with you."

Warily, Arthur watched her stop plucking figs from the platter she had been interested in and lick her sticky fingers. "He spoke of little else when first we came upon you in the desert. It saddened him greatly that your youth had been stolen from you."

"I don't regret it. I loved him." Daenerys regarded him steadily, daring him to contradict this simple confession.

Shifting his weight uneasily between feet, Arthur kept his expression carefully neutral. "They suggest this marriage only as a means of bringing you to heel, Princess. You would be giving away what little authority you do have and gaining nothing in return."

"Please," she began, and Arthur could see she was warring within herself over her next words. "You have been a loyal friend and councillor to my brother for so very long, Ser Arthur. Will you speak candidly with me?"

"If you'd like," he agreed reluctantly.

"Do you think I'm mad for staying here?"

"I think you are well intentioned."

Daenerys closed her eyes and exhaled, her small frame seeming to dwindle before him. "Help me."

* * *

He could not only see it, he could feel it. Daenerys' outrage and disgust were not only written across her delicate features, they rolled off of her in waves. She had barely been able to suppress them when Quentyn Martell and his companions had approached her on the dais, but now; alone in her chambers, she set them free.

"How dare he come here with a piece of paper and think to claim me as his prize!"

"The pact appears to be legitimate, Princess, though Ser Willem's right to sign it on Viserys' behalf is questionable."

"Even if it were legitimate, it calls for Viserys' marriage to the Princess Arianne Martell, not my marriage to her brother."

Here Arthur decided to remain silent. She was seething at the idea of being traded to Dorne in exchange for fifty thousand fighting men, and he let her. He'd learnt that Daenerys' temperament was still very much that of a child despite her assertions otherwise. Trying to make her see reason when she was in a mood could either go very well or very poorly, and this opportunity was not one they could afford to throw away in a fit of spite.

"Let Rhaegar marry her, then!" She raged on.

"The pact was clearly made with the belief that Rhaegar was dead," Arthur pointed out.

"You think I should agree to it?!" Daenerys rounded on him, stalking closer. "You, who counselled me against marrying Hizdarh zo Loraq and bringing peace to Meereen? Who said I was too young to marry again? That Rhaegar would never expect me to wed anyone at my age?" Each accusation was punctuated by a finger thrust into his chest. He hardly felt it for the white linen surcoat which covered and concealed leather body armor beneath. Arthur had long since exchanged his plate and mail for the lighter counterpart in Meereen's stifling heat. He may be Dornish born and bred, but he was no fool to suffer and sweat needlessly.

When he would provide her with no response with which to attack, Daenerys pursed her lips in aggravation. "Obviously they are still unaware that my brother is alive, or this offer would not stand."

Arthur guardedly watched her contemplate this realization. It was a fair assessment. Doran Martell would never have sent his son with a marriage contract and alliance proposal if he knew Rhaegar yet lived. Despite the implicit fact this meant Rhaegar, and not Daenerys, would ascend the Iron Throne should they be successful, Arthur did not believe the Prince of Dorne would so easily forgive the Targaryen Prince for his role in the deaths of Princess Elia and her children.

This worried him for another reason altogether as well. If Doran Martell was yet of the assumption Rhaegar was dead, it meant word had not reached Dorne of the landing of a fleet of ships flying the Targaryen standard. It could be that Quentyn had left before Rhaegar had reached Westeros, which was likely. Arthur tried not to dwell on the second possibility; that a storm or something worse had waylaid, or even sunk the fleet carrying the Golden Company and his closest friend. He couldn't believe the sea would claim the Dragon Prince now, not after everything they had gone through. Not after what he had witnessed at the Ruby Ford that night.

Daenerys broke into his thoughts. "I know you are itching to tell me I am being ridiculous and childish – that fifty thousand Dornish swords would drastically improve Rhaegar's chances of securing the Iron Throne."

There was nothing he would have liked to say to her more, but all he did say was, "We don't belong here, Daenerys."

"I don't belong anywhere. I have never belonged."


	11. Chapter 11

Awakening yet again to the smell of wet horse, Lyanna didn't even to bother wrinkling her nose. It hardly registered with her anymore. Each new day she would be unceremoniously thrown across the back of one of the animals as though she were no more than a sack of potatoes. But Lyanna would not protest. They would plod along for hours and hours, and with each and every step the horse would take her head would sway, cheek pressed against a flank that would grow sweatier as the day went on. Her hair was a matted rat's nest, in fact she could not even be sure something had not taken up residence in the tangled mess. But Lyanna did not complain. By the time they would stop and make camp her throat would be dry as a bone, lips parched. But Lyanna did not ask for water.

"_Well? Is she going to live?"_

"_It seems so, my lord. But…"_

"_But?"_

"_She may never awaken. And if she does, she may be dumb."_

"_Dumb?"_

"_The knock to her head, you see. It may have rendered her witless. It does happen from time to time."_

"_We can only hope."_

Lyanna didn't know whether to laugh or shudder at the memory of the conversation she had overheard, Roose Bolton's muted voice hardly coming through the canvas wall. Perhaps she would have been more fortunate to be witless, or better yet permanently unconscious, safe in her own little world. But she was not. Her temple still throbbed fiercely, though whether this was as a result of her original injury or day after day of hanging limply upside down over a horse's back, she could not tell. But she did not dare give any indication she had regained her senses. She let them toss her around, she let them grope her body when they believed no one was watching, she let them press their faces into her breasts and squeeze her ass and grunt like rutting beasts.

The man who tended her wounds was the worst by far. She was in no way convinced he was a Maester, despite the title he was always addressed with. When they'd carried her into the tent every evening and deposited her on a thin bedroll, _he_ would then begin his ritual. First he would unlace the roughspun tunic they had dressed her in, pull it down over her shoulder discreetly and unwind the bandage. The damage the crossbow bolt had done had been sewn up easily enough, but her crude treatment by the men who handled her and the way she was carelessly transported often saw at least one or two stitches torn. Lyanna had raged inside at first, at the man who called himself a Maester, because he would not tell them to stop, that they were only causing her further injury. But now she knew it was because he enjoyed this sick game he played with her too much, and if her wounds were to heal completely he would lose his plaything. And so he would repair her stitches, rewrap her shoulder.

Next he would inspect the gash on her head. It had required a few stitches as well, but luckily these were holding up better.

Or unluckily if you are him, Lyanna thought bitterly.

When he had made sure this was healing well with a few choice prods which made her want to hiss in pain, he would move on to his real purpose, all pretenses of caring for her hurts vanishing. Now the tunic was undone completely, now he pulled the itchy fabric away from her skin, and now he began his ministrations. Starting with her navel he would lick every exposed inch of her flesh, running his tongue lazily up her torso, nuzzling and sucking the underside of her breasts, but never touching with his hands. Never. His mouth would roam over her entire midsection, his teeth would close around her nipples and tug eagerly, and Lyanna would scream and shout inside her head. Nipping, bruising, his foul breath fanning up into her face, suffocating.

It had not started that way. It had begun with an innocent kiss on her brow that first day and slowly progressed to this molestation. To the biting and suckling and inhaling so deeply she wondered if he wasn't trying to ingest her soul, to devour her essence.

She had to fight, to resist the urge to kick and claw and beat him until he stopped. It was maddening, it was torture. But not once did she lift a finger.

For as long as they all thought her inanimate, they would not keep as close a watch to her. She had been waiting, studying, planning. They were travelling north upon the Kingsroad through the Neck. Upon first realizing this, Lyanna had vainly hoped Maege Mormont and Galbart Glover; who had been sent ahead by ship to Greywater Watch to garner support from Howland Reed in retaking the North, would somehow come across the Bolton force. But even if they had, she wasn't sure what remained of the Northern army would be much of a match for the Lord of the Dreadfort's loyalists. So far, they had seen no sign of the surviving Stark bannermen.

She had also come to the conclusion she must wait to make her escape. The horse she was always secured to was one of many in a long baggage train. At first a guard had always walked to either side of her, but now there was only one man, and he often fell behind, chatting with his companions. She could reach and untie the rope that bound her to the horse's back as well as the reins of the following equine in the train. But her own horse's reins were tethered to the animal in front of it. Lyanna knew she could ride bridle-less, she'd done it plenty of times on her gelding back in Winterfell when she was younger, but she had no idea of how this horse would react to being ridden without the aid of a bit in its mouth. Even if she managed to slip the bridle off its head and it would respond to just the pressure of her legs and her urging words, they were surrounded by marsh. The only solid footing for leagues was the Kingsroad, and only the crannogmen knew how to safely navigate the swamps of Greywater Watch. The horse would sink before it made it more than three strides into the bog.

With this in mind, she had decided to wait until they were closer to Moat Cailin before she made her attempt. She was far more familiar with the landscape north of the Neck. It was possible should she actually get away from her captors she may be able to make it to White Harbour where she knew fat Lord Manderly still governed, having sent his sons to join the war in his stead.

And now that day had finally come. A heavy fog had rolled in as they'd set up camp the previous evening and lingered yet, making it difficult to see more than a few paces ahead. It made the going slow, and everyone was damp, the moisture which hung in the air seeping into cloaks and clothes and boots alike.

Lyanna's hair hung in stringy clumps as her horse lumbered along, snorting. She knew the cover the fog provided was a double edged sword. Just as Roose's men would not be able to easily find her, neither would she easily be able to find her way. And if she failed, she could imagine her punishment would not be light. For all his soft, whispery words and mild manner, Roose Bolton was not a man to be crossed. He obviously preferred her to remain alive, but the state of her health seemed to be of less import.

Yet when she thought of another moment spent with the supposed Maester's mouth on her flesh, she felt her resolve solidify. Of late he had been spending more time focused on her skirt, spreading it out just so or molding it against her legs until he could see their outline clearly through the material. She was nervous about what would come next. It was impossible to imagine laying pliantly and allowing him to defile her body any further.

It had to be now.

Fumbling, her fingers numb from the miserable weather and the way her arms were trussed to her sides, Lyanna began to work on the ropes. It took far longer than she'd anticipated, but eventually she worked through the knots and moved on to the reins of the next horse in line. The animal tossed its head and proceeded to rub its muzzle on her horse's rump with an audible sigh. The moment she pushed herself up and straddled the horse her guards would be alerted to her ploy, giving her only seconds to free her horse of its bridle and make good her getaway. She prayed the mount would heed her leg aids and voice, but there could be no guarantee.

Lyanna stilled and released an unsteady breath.

She thought of Brandon and her father. Dearest Ned. Catelyn. Robb. Arya, Bran, and Rickon.

"_I'll wait for you."_

And then she heaved herself up, swung a leg over the horse's withers, and leaned forward to slip the bridle over its ears.

"'Ay!"

The horse spooked, Lyanna clutched its mane, but the bridle held on. She was panicking, trying to reach out again. Men were moving closer to investigate. The horse was shying, startled by the commotion, snorting. With all her strength she drove her heels into its sides and the horse bolted. The reins snapped, and they were away, free of the baggage train.

Lyanna gripped with her thighs and guided with her calves and heels. Her hands were still entangled in the horse's man, and she kept them there, holding on for life. They flew off the Kingsroad and into the scrub, crashing blindly through underbrush. The horse stumbled on the uneven terrain, but she urged it on fervently. It couldn't fall now, not yet. She could hear them shouting from behind, but she kept her eyes trained ahead.

The forest loomed ahead out of the fog, wild and dark and wonderful.

The horse shrieked, legs buckling, and Lyanna pitched forward violently. The ground rushed up to greet her, all thistly brambles and coarse grass. She tumbled head over heels, limbs flailing, and came to a rest abruptly. Sucking in a shuddering breath, she forced herself to her elbows, and then to hands and knees. Something warm was trickling down the back of her neck. The horse was bugling shrilly, but she couldn't make out from where. It sounded very much in pain.

"Lady Lyanna."

Gasping, Lyanna tried to regain her feet. The tromping of hoofbeats was growing nearer. She struggled, and then crawled instead, every movement excruciating.

"I'm so pleased to see you are a runner."

There was no escaping that thin whispering.

Lyanna twisted around to face the Lord of the Dreadfort. His milky eyes were crinkled at the corners in mirth.

"Ramsay does love a good game of catch-me-if-you-can."

* * *

Rain pelted against the tent. It was cold and coming down heavily, but Lyanna couldn't help wishing she was standing in it. She wondered if she'd ever feel truly clean again. Her fingernails were ragged and caked with dirt and blood. Her clothes were torn, filthy. Ankles and wrists chafed raw. There was scarcely an inch of her grimy skin that wasn't either black, purple, and yellow with bruises or scabbed over.

But the would-be Maester didn't come to her anymore. The day she'd failed to escape he had attempted to see to her injuries and she'd broken his nose. No one had punished her - not for that, at least.

Three days later they'd taken Moat Cailin from the Ironborn with minimal losses. Evidently Roose had sent orders to the contingency he'd left in Ramsay's command at the Dreadfort and they had marched down and attacked the ironmen from the north at the same time Roose's force was attacking from the south. Every last one of those who'd surrendered was flayed alive, their skinless bodies stuck on pikes along the Kingsroad leading up to the ruined fortress.

Lyanna could still hear their howling and screeching.

He intended to give her to his legitimized bastard, along with Winterfell. But they wouldn't be able to marry quite yet. Ramsay's current wife, Donella Hornwood, was still starving to death locked in a tower somewhere.

Crying was useless, and it racked her battered body with painful sobs besides that. Instead she sat and listened to the rain.

Outside the men standing vigil over her tent were muttering heatedly, and a lone word floated to Lyanna's ears.

Targaryen.


	12. Chapter 12

The coast was in sight. Their captain had assured them they would reach Sunspear by morning. Somehow, they'd scavenged enough ships. Enough for the Unsullied, the sellswords, the freedmen, and the dragons. It had been no small feat.

Quentyn Martell had been adamant about bringing no man, woman, or child who appeared to have even the slightest whiff of the bloody flux. Arthur could not blame him for his attempt to not bring the disease to Dorne, but if asked, he would have said it was impossible for them to be able to contain the illness. Travelling cramped together in the bellies of the vessels as they were, it was inevitable that sickness would spread. And it had, taking the lives of hundreds. They'd lost not only former slaves, but fighting men as well. Already two ships of corpses had been put to the torch and set adrift.

The dragons had been another matter. While Viserion and Rhaegal had been captured and secured with nets made of chain, none of the ships' crews would have anything to do with bringing the beasts on board. Two dozen Unsullied perished in dragonfire. Attempts were made to lure Drogon with the carcasses of sheep and pigs, but the black dragon would circle overheard and then disappear as abruptly as he'd shown up. Reports they were receiving from nearby farmers and shepherds suggested he was well fed.

The day had come when they'd finally had to depart, and when Meereen was far to their backs, Daenerys had gone into her cabin and not returned. Arthur knew the dragons were as children to her and that she wept for Drogon. But only a few days later the dragon was spotted in the distance, gliding over the crystalline waters of the Summer Sea. He was following the cries of his brothers. With difficulty Daenerys made the decision to release Rhaegal and Viserion. At first all three dragons had vanished. For over a week everyone scanned the horizon in trepidation. If the dragons didn't return, it would be a great loss. But if they did return, they could easily lay waste to the entire fleet.

And then they reappeared, and it was as though the freedom had somehow tempered their ferocity. By day all three would hunt, roaming for leagues and leagues, but by dusk they would always return and alight on the decks of the ships, causing them to rock dangerously, before settling for the night. Still no one dared to approach them apart from Daenerys, but they did not burn or maim the crews or others as long as they kept their distance. Arthur was astonished by how large they had become in the time since he'd first laid eyes on them in Vaes Tolorro, now easily the size of a large draft horse. No doubt the wild game had supplemented their growth, as Drogon was visibly larger than his brothers. Arthur didn't know exactly what they found to devour out at sea, and he didn't want to.

* * *

Staring out at the Dornish coastline, Arthur could only think of Starfall. Word of Ashara's plunge into the sea had reached them not long after they'd arrived in Pentos upon taking passage on a merchant vessel sailing out of Maidenpool. It still made his heart ache to imagine his vibrant and coy sister in such a state of despair that she would throw herself from a tower. Elia was gone, raped and murdered at the hands of Gregor Clegane after watching her infant be dashed against the wall, his tiny skull crushed. Amory Lorch had torn sweet little Rhaenys out from her hiding place beneath her father's bed and stabbed her half a hundred times.

"What dark thoughts plague your mind, Ser Arthur?"

He started, so caught up in his reverie that he had not heard Daenerys approach. "Not thoughts, Princess. Memories."

She leaned her arms against the railing beside him and nodded softly. "I cannot keep lying to him."

Quentyn, Arthur knew. "No." The boy was an unfortunate pawn caught up in a complicated game. He had spent the entire crossing trying to get to know his betrothed better. But Arthur knew Daenerys merely tolerated his awkward conversation and encouraging smiles.

"What is he like?"

"My lady?"

"Doran Martell. What is he like?"

He is the brother of the woman Rhaegar abandoned for a she-wolf. "He is a fair man. And he holds no love for the Baratheons and Lannisters."

"Because Tywin Lannister ordered Princess Elia and her children killed."

"And because Robert did not punish either the Old Lion or the two who committed the crimes," Arthur supplied, the conversation coming too close to his thoughts for his own liking. He had carefully schooled his face back to a mask of neutrality, but the feelings were still there, lurking just beneath the surface.

"He'll be furious when he discovers Rhaegar is alive."

"No, not furious." Arthur could not recall ever having seen Doran Martell anything other than calm and mild-mannered. "But not best pleased."

The Red Viper, however, was another matter entirely. Oberyn was vindictive, passionate, and rumoured by many to fight with a poisoned blade. There was a small chance Doran would honour the marriage pact despite Rhaegar being alive if he could be assured he would receive justice for his sister's death. But Oberyn could very likely demand that that justice be the Dragon Prince's head on a spear and ruin any possibility of an alliance between Dorne and the Targaryens.

Daenerys was watching the steadily expanding coast, her expression a mixture of apprehension and stubborn determination. "Do you think this is going to work?"

Arthur wanted very much to reassure her in that moment, but it would not be fair. There was no telling what reception they would receive from the Prince of Dorne. "I wish I knew, Princess," was all he could offer.

Silently, she shifted and brought her head to rest against his armored shoulder with the faintest of sighs.

* * *

There was no sound. Quentyn Martell's face was glowing red with humiliation. Beside him, his sister Arianne's was caught somewhere between smugness and vehemence. Fortunately the Red Viper was not in attendance.

But it was Doran's lack of reaction to the news Rhaegar Targaryen yet lived which concerned Arthur the most. His political conservatism in the matter unnerved the Sword of the Morning. He had expected shock, animosity, disdain. He had expected the expressions the Prince of Dorne's children wore. He had not expected this.

"The contract states Viserys would marry Princess Arianne in exchange for Dorne's support in reclaiming the Iron Throne. Viserys, as you are aware, is dead. You sent your son to seal the pact with a promise of marriage to me instead, Prince Doran. I agreed."

"The contract was made on the pretense your brother was dead!" Arianne hissed, her exotic features twisted in anger.

Still Doran sat in his chair unresponsive.

Daenerys was struggling to rein in her own temper, Arthur could see. "I understand. But while Prince Quentyn will never sit the Iron Throne should he wed me, you would receive vengeance for Princess Elia and her children. Of that I can guarantee you."

At the mention of his sister, Doran suddenly seemed to stir, as though waking from a dream. "You are not the first to promise Dorne retribution, Princess Daenerys. Sadly, we have yet to see any of these assurances come to fruition." His voice was even, but laced with sorrow and not criticism.

"Those promises were not made by my family. We cannot be held accountable for the failures of others."

Arthur closed his eyes and waited for the fallout from that simple statement.

"Accountable? You cannot be held accountable? Who then?! Who should be to blame for Elia's rape and murder and the slaughter of her babies?!" Arianne raged, her shouts echoing off the polished marble walls.

Doran held up a hand for his daughter to desist, and it was just as well he had, for Daenerys could only glower in exasperation. "We thank you for your offer of justice, Princess, but my brother is in King's Landing as we speak at the behest of the Hand of the King. Oberyn has been gifted a place on the King's small council and the man responsible for my sister and her children's ends has paid with his life."

All of the fight went out of Daenerys upon learning this. She was groping for words, taken aback completely. "But you said…"

"If your brother is alive, why did he not come here himself? Is he not man enough to face us and beg for forgiveness? Is he so lacking in integrity that he sends his little sister to plead in his stead?" Arianne burst out again.

"Prince Quentyn sought out the Princess with an offer. That is why we are here, not at Prince Rhaegar's request," Arthur interceded of a sudden. It was not his place, but he knew what Daenerys' answer to Arianne's interrogation would have been.

Dragons do not beg.

The attention transferred to him, and he could see their condemnation of his treachery against Dorne. Against his home. But it was the disappointment written across Doran's face which affected him the greatest.

Arianne was glaring. "You are not worthy of your title or the sword upon your back. You should have voluntarily relinquished them both the day you turned your back on Elia and Dorne," she spurned him.

There was nothing he could say which would excuse his betrayal of Elia's friendship and Dorne's trust. Instead he reached up and drew Dawn.

Daenerys's hand touched his forearm, and he realized she was frowning. "No."

But he gently drew away from her and stepped forward, setting the pale blade reverently on the floor at Doran's swollen feet.

* * *

"They cannot hold us here like prisoners."

"They can."

"We have done nothing wrong."

"We sailed into Sunspear with a host of Unsullied, three companies of sellswords, and hundreds of Meereenese former slaves. Not to mention the dragons, Princess."

"I should be with them, not here."

"The bloody flux is still passing through the fleet."

"Is it any wonder? They have nowhere to go, they aren't allowed off of the ships!"

"Would you have the disease running rampant through Dorne as well? It must be contained."

"Do they mean so little to you? They are people as well, they're lives are of value!"

"Princess, please. The ships are under quarantine until it has run its course."

"I should be with them!"

"And if you were infected and died? What use would you be to them then?"

"We should never have come here," Daenerys spat, and Arthur knew what she was really saying.

I should have never listened to you.

He dropped his gaze to the intricate mosaic of tiles on the floor. Perhaps she was right to blame him. It had been a vain hope that Doran would uphold the pact and support their cause. Instead they were captives. Which was not even the worst part.

Word still had not come of the Golden Company making land. Rhaegar's plan had been to divide the company, sending Jon to take the Stormlands, starting with Rain House and moving steadily towards Storm's End. He would take the rest of their forces to Dragonstone, which Stannis had recently left in the care of a few retainers, after his resounding defeat on the Blackwater, in order to sail north. In this way they would box in Tywin Lannister's army at King's Landing as well as what remained of the Royal Fleet.

Without sharing Rhaegar's strategy with the Prince of Dorne, who appeared to currently be on friendly terms with the Lannisters, Arthur wasn't sure how to ask after any sightings of the Golden Company.

"You're worried about him."

Raising his eyes up from the ground, Arthur met her lilac gaze.

"It's always about him, isn't it? All of this is about him."

"Daenerys-"

"No. I asked for your help. I asked for your advice. But it was always what was in his best interest. He is all that you or anyone else are concerned about. Rhaegar." She was not bitter or resentful, just hurt, as though she had only now come to this realization.

"That isn't true," Arthur insisted soothingly, brow furrowed.

Daenerys shook her head, and he saw with bafflement that there were tears clinging to her fine lashes. "How can you say that when you were prepared to watch me marry Quentyn Martell in exchange for fifty thousand swords?"

Shouting and accusing and baiting he was prepared for, but not this. Not tears. It had been many, many years since the Dornishman had been faced with a crying woman, and to his great consternation, he found he had no idea what to do. Ashara had always been more apt to become silent and pouty than cry, and poor, gentle Elia had always borne her grief with a quiet reserve which Arthur had both hated and respected. Queen Rhaella had been beyond tears by the time he had been named to the Kingsguard, an empty husk of a woman.

And the She-Wolf. She had only cried once.

* * *

"I don't understand."

"I am prepared to honour the marriage contract, under revised terms."

"Which are?"

"You shall remain here in Dorne until such a time as is deemed fit for your marriage to Quentyn to take place."

Daenerys arched a brow. "And what has brought on this sudden change of heart?"

For his part, Doran Martell managed to appear more dignified than anyone else in the room despite being confined to his wheeled chair. An embroidered silk blanket draped across his lap, concealing his legs and feet. Still, his face was puffy and his fingers plump, but it was his clear dark eyes which spoke to his royal bearing. "It seems Tywin Lannister has filled our hands and hearts with promises which have once again turned to ash. While extracting a confession from the man he believed to be responsible for the deaths of Elia and her daughter, Oberyn was killed."

Dead. The Red Viper dead. Arthur could hardly suppress his shock. In his memories Oberyn Martell had always seemed so vital, so fiery, so invincible. It was difficult to equate the image of that man with death, unless it was the death of someone he had slain.

"I am sorry for your loss," Daenerys was saying, and Arthur strove to bring his focus back to the conversation at hand. She was holding the gaze of the Prince of Dorne, weighing, contemplating, deciding. Then, with finality, "But I cannot accept your terms."

Arthur was careful not to let the overwhelming sense of defeat he felt show, but this time she did not look to him for guidance.

"I do, however, suggest another option. I understand perfectly well your intention in keeping me here in Dorne to ensure that in exchange for your support this time you do receive justice for the deaths of your sister and her children." Daenerys gave pause here, making sure Doran's attention was on her and her alone. "But I would instead invite your son or whomever else it would please you to choose to accompany myself and our combined forces in marching north and taking the justice you have waited for so long yourselves. Do not let Rhaegar or any other have what Dorne has been deprived of for eleven years. Vengeance against the Lannisters."

* * *

"Princess?"

"Take it."

Arthur didn't have much choice, she was shoving the bundle into his hands. "What is this?"

"Unwrap it and you will see."

He flicked his eyes to her suspiciously, but Daenerys merely gave an encouraging smile. He could already tell from the size and weight what was inside the folds of red linen.

When she saw he would not play along, Daenerys huffed and pulled the fabric away to reveal the sword herself. It was a blade of exceptional quality, not Valyrian, but still with good balance and forged by a skilled smith.

"Thank you, Princess." The words sounded awkward and foreign on his tongue, but Arthur had no others.

"I know that it is a poor replacement, but you will need a sword nonetheless if you are going to help me help my brother win back the Seven Kingdoms," she explained in a very matter-of-fact manner.

"I-"

"-Will be leading the Unsullied and sellsword companies when we leave here to march north tomorrow with the Dornish army." Daenerys was watching for his reaction, clearly pleased with herself over this decision.

Arthur lifted his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know what to say," He admitted.

"'Yes' would be sufficient."

"I wasn't aware it was offered as a choice."

With one small finger Daenerys beckoned him closer, and Arthur leant down to oblige her. "It wasn't," she informed him wryly and pressed her soft lips to his cheek. "Friends?" She prompted when he had straightened to his full height again.

Arthur gave a slow nod and cast another appraising glance over the sword in his hands. It was a fine blade.

But it was not Dawn.


	13. Chapter 13

Widow's Watch. They had landed at Widow's Watch, but now they were moving west. Ramsgate had already been taken. Old Lord Ondrew Locke had surrendered Oldcastle without a fight. White Harbour was preparing its defenses. The famed Golden Company flying the three-headed dragon was headed their way.

It was all the Bolton men spoke about, their formerly hushed voices growing louder and more urgent by the day. Their most heated point of discussion was who led the sellswords. The conjectures ranged from Viserys Targaryen; whose death they claimed could not be confirmed, to his little sister Daenerys; who was rumoured to have sacked cities in Slaver's Bay with her three dragons before setting sail for Westeros, to the ghost of the Dragon Prince.

Lyanna's heart thumped wildly in her chest as she considered these options. There had been no sightings of dragons along the Bite nor any mention of them being part of the attack on Ramsgate, but the mere thought of dragons still seemed so inconceivable to her that she could not take this to mean it was not Daenerys Stormborn leading the Golden Company. In fact, the girl seemed the most plausible candidate.

There may be no evidence to support the claim that Viserys was dead, but the fact remained that the news had been spread by someone for some reason. And why fake your death only to hire the most reputed sellsword company in Essos and fly the Targaryen banner the moment you make land in Westeros? If it was about staying beneath the notice of the Lannisters and Baratheons, the supposedly fake-dead prince was not doing a very good job.

And the third possibility was one she did not give any merit to whatsoever. Rhaegar was dead and of that there was proof, many a man had watched his body burn on a funeral pyre at the Ruby Ford. She had not wanted to believe it when Ser Gerold had told her, but she had known from the gruff edge to the White Bull's voice that it was so. And eleven years spent pleading and praying and tormenting herself over it had not changed a thing. Rhaegar Targaryen was dead and there were no such things as ghosts, despite all of Old Nan's tales to the contrary.

It did, however, give her great satisfaction that the red and black dragon pendant was casting such a shadow of doubt over the once cocksure Bolton army. At night she murmured the house words over again and again like a curse upon her captors.

Fire and blood. Fire and blood. Fire and blood.

* * *

They were preparing to continue north upon the Kingsroad to Winterfell. Evidently Lady Hornwood had finally succumbed to her deprivation of food, but not before chewing off three of her own fingers, and thus leaving Ramsay Bolton Lord of Hornwood and free to wed again.

For the first time in her life Lyanna was facing the reality that she may be better off making a noose from her ratty blanket and hanging herself in her tent. She didn't want to imagine the torture that awaited her should she actually marry the Bastard of the Dreadfort. Her guards made a game of trading the whispers they'd heard of his atrocious past times as they walked along beside her horse or stood outside her tent. They wanted her to listen, to be filled with anxiety and fear.

But she lost herself in her memories instead. Brandon and her father were gone. They had taken Ned. They had taken Catelyn and the children Lyanna had not even known. But they could not take her memories.

"_I promise."_

* * *

Shouts woke her in the dead of night. Hollering and crashing and a commotion so deafening that she knew instantly what was happening.

They were under attack.

Scrabbling to the flap of the tent, Lyanna pushed the canvas aside carefully and peered out. All was dark, not even the stars visible, hidden behind a thick cloud cover. When her vision had adjusted as much as it was going to, she inched forward and stood up outside. Her guards were nowhere in sight, nor were any other Bolton men. Some of the nearby tents had been knocked down, and the ground was littered with a variety of dropped or discarded items. Lyanna saw the outlines of boots, scabbards, helmets, knives, blankets, shields, and arrows. The yelling seemed to be fading into her surroundings. And that was when she realized she'd been abandoned.

It occurred to her that she should flee, but the coarse rope binding her wrists and ankles only allowed her to move at a slow shuffle. She had attempted to gnaw through her bonds once, but when one of her guards caught her, he had dropped his pants and pissed over them right then and there with not a hint of shame. The smell had made her gag at first, but it no longer even registered. Still, she refused to bring her mouth near the urine soaked cord.

Limping through the cold-stiffened muck, she plucked up the first blade she came across and began to saw through her fetters. Movement caught from the corner of her eye caused her to freeze, crouching down and hopefully out of sight.

Three men. Lyanna could see them now, picking their way through the deserted encampment. Their swords hung at their sides in glittering, bejeweled scabbards along with numerous other treasures, and even from her position it was easy to tell the armor they wore was intricate and gilded in gold. The amount of wealth they wore on their persons would make many a lord envious. She had never before witnessed any man in the midst of a battle heedlessly carrying such riches around.

They halted their progress, and she realized with dread that she had been spotted whilst distracted by their appearance.

"You! What are you doing there? Stand up!"

Lyanna rose slowly, the knife dangling from her fingers, forgotten.

"Drop your weapon!"

Startled, she glanced dumbly down and then gripped the hilt tighter. "No." Her voice was a hoarse croak, and so she tried again. "No! Not until you tell me whose men you are!"

They exchanged looks and continued their approach. "Put down the blade, woman. Don't be stupid."

"Stupid? Is a dog stupid if it has been beaten one too many times and bares its teeth when next a hand is raised to it?"

One of them chuckled. "Are you a dog?"

Lyanna raised the dagger higher as they fanned out into a semicircle. Still not even one had laid a hand to their sword. "No. I am a wolf," she answered firmly.

"A wolf, is it?" More sniggering.

"Lay down the knife."

She took a step back as they began to close in around her.

"That's a good mutt. Toss your bone this way, now."

It was not done in her most rational moment, but Lyanna obeyed. She hurled the blade at the nearest man and whirled on her heel to bolt. Her efforts only gave them further amusement, it seemed, as she could hear their laughter behind her. And then something solid struck her back and Lyanna toppled, colliding with the ground with such force it drove the air from her lungs. She coughed and gasped, but there was an immense weight pressing her body down, and then she felt her skirt being hiked up over her legs.

"No! No!" She was shrieking, but it didn't matter. She could not kick, her ankles were still bound.

"Quiet now, bitch, it'll go easier for you," he rasped against her ear.

"What's this?" A new voice demanded.

The man on top of her stopped ripping at her skirt and some of his weight eased off. "Just some wench the Northerners left behind."

"Did it occur to you if they were holding her prisoner that she might be of some value?"

A guffaw. "Oh, aye, I see her value. It's right here."

Lyanna yelped at the rough hand that grabbed between her legs.

"Enough." The order stilled her assaulter. "Does she have a name?"

"Seems a bit touched. Says she's a dog."

"Get her up." Nothing. "I said, pick her up, man. Now!"

Grumbling, and she was hauled harshly to her feet. She was still panting, still trying to catch her breath, but the moment her eyes fell on her saviour she knew him. She could not have mistaken that ginger beard; now fuller, or those sharp hazel eyes; the corners now showing the fine lines of his age. And she could see from the way his expression changed that he had recognized her as well.

"She is no dog. She is a wolf," Jon Connington muttered. Then, "Cut her loose."

Lyanna winced as the ropes were severed. They fell to the ground, taking with them several layers of her skin.

"Bring her to my tent. See that she has food, water, and blankets." That said, he turned and strode away into the night.

Her would be rapist spat on the ground and took her by the elbow, steering her around what remained of the Bolton campsite and to the other side of the ruins of Moat Cailin. He left her inside what she knew must have been Roose Bolton's tent originally, and she couldn't help the inadvertent shiver that made its way down her spine.

It was clear the man was not going to bring any of the items Jon Connington had ordered, so Lyanna made do with what was available to her. She poured wine from the jug into a basin and tore a strip from a cloak still hanging by the tent's flap. Biting down hard on her lower lip, she gingerly cleansed her raw wrists and ankles, soaking more strips of material in the wine when she was finished and wrapping them around the angry red flesh. She then threw out the wine and refilled the basin with water, this time scrubbing as much of the grime from her skin as was possible without undressing. Her hair was another matter. Lyanna dumped what was left of the jug of water over her head and worked her fingers through the clumps and tangles as best she could, plucking out all manner of twigs, flies, and other debris. When she had finished she still felt only fit for the lowliest streets of Flea Bottom, but it was a sight better than when she started.

She was parched and immediately regretted using up the water, but settled for a goblet of wine, which she had only begun to sip when Jon Connington reappeared.

He paused upon entering the tent to find her seated on one of the stools, drinking wine. With a snort he skirted around her and moved to stand behind the large desk which dominated the space. It was littered with maps and other documents, but he paid this little mind as he dropped into the chair and propped his feet up, leaning back.

They surveyed each other in silence a few moments and then he spoke. "What was Bolton's plan for you?"

Lyanna cleared her throat before answering, "He intended to marry me to his bastard and thereby give him title over Winterfell."

Jon's gaze was shrewd. "What of your brother's children?"

"All dead, save Sansa. She is being held hostage in King's Landing and betrothed to Joffrey." She forced her voice to remain level, but had lowered her head, staring into her wine cup.

"Not anymore. The little shit's dead. Poisoned by his own uncle, the Imp, at his wedding feast."

Lyanna's gray eyes darted back to him. "When?"

"Hardly matters. They've already replaced him with the youngest cub and forged a marriage alliance with the Tyrell's besides that."

"And Sansa? Have you heard anything of her?"

"I expect with Bolton named Warden of the North they hadn't much need of her anymore. They may marry her to his bastard in your stead now though, I suppose."

Her head was aching, her wrists and ankles burning, but suddenly she was determined. She could still try to find a way to save Sansa. Something of her family survived as long as Ned's daughter breathed air. If Jon was right and they were going to wed Sansa to Ramsay, they would be sending her north. And with the majority of the Royal Fleet lying on the bottom of Blackwater Bay, it would most likely be via the Kingsroad, in which case they would need to pass through the Neck. It was a slim chance, but if Lyanna could get to Greywater Watch and if Howland Reed was yet alive, the crannogmen could ambush the Lannister party and save Sansa.

"No."

Lyanna nearly jumped, so caught up in her own plotting that she had forgotten there was anyone else in the room. "Excuse me?"

"I can see what you're scheming, and the answer is no. The Stark girl is not my concern," Jon was notifying her absently as he poured himself a generous cup of wine.

"She is a child." She bristled, watching him incredulously. "I don't expect you to help, I only want to travel with you as far as Greywater Watch. You are headed south, are you not?"

"No."

"You are not marching towards King's Landing," Lyanna repeated skeptically.

"What I mean to say is; no, you are not coming with us."

"I want to speak to whoever is in charge."

Jon almost choked on his wine as he laughed. "You are."

"You. You are leading the Golden Company through the North, taking strongholds," she concluded, not without a hint of derision.

"You were expecting someone else, She-Wolf?" He inquired with a brow raised, mocking her. Daring her to admit to some desperate hope she had held.

Lyanna glared. "Why are you flying the Targaryen standard? Why not the griffins Aerys stripped away from you?"

Here Jon's eyes narrowed. "He may have taken my titles and lands, but not even the Mad King could take those."

"Is it Daenerys you fight for or some imposter-Targaryen you have dredged up from some unlikely cadet branch somewhere?"

"Neither, I'm afraid." He was smirking. He was toying with her.

Raising her chin, Lyanna stared back at him defiantly. "You hate me because I loved him."

"No." Jon drained his goblet before continuing, every word pronounced with antipathy. "I hate you because he returned your love. And he died for it."


	14. Chapter 14

A half a dozen ships. That was all that had managed to make land, and three of them were badly crippled. The Golden Company had been divided, with Jon taking three quarters of the force to the Stormlands. There was no way of knowing whether they'd made it or whether the same tempest that had battered and swept off course the remainder of the fleet had done the same to Jon's vessels. Some of them had sunk, that much was clear, as several men claimed to have witnessed the crafts disappearing beneath the crashing waves. What was uncertain was how many.

They'd judged from the mountains thrusting up from the landscape for as far as the eye could see that they must have washed ashore in the Vale. A far cry from their planned destination of Dragonstone. But there was no way the damaged ships could be repaired without supplies and time, and so they'd set out, marching west along the coast to avoid a trek through the mountains.

On the fifth day they reached Heart's Home and took it by surprise during a raid in the night. Caught completely off guard, the household had surrendered without much of a fight. A heavily snoring Lord Lyonel Corbray was dragged from his bed and deposited in the great hall, where the rest of the servants and guards had been gathered.

Sputtering, he passed his indignant scowl over the ranks of the Golden Company who stood at the front of the room deliberating. "I demand to know what the meaning of this is!"

"What does it look like you fool?" someone shot back offhandedly. They weren't even paying him any real heed.

"Where is your commander? I demand to speak with whomever is behind this outrageous and unsolicited attack!"

"I'm afraid they are two very different people, Lord Corbray and Ser Harry is currently otherwise preoccupied. But perhaps I can be of service to you?"

Stepping back out of the way, the sellswords revealed the speaker.

"Seven save me…" the graying man said on an exhale, blinking rapidly as though to correct his vision. "You… you are dead. Long dead."

Rhaegar inclined his silver head a fraction. "It would seem not."

"I-I watched you burn after Robert struck you dead. I was there, I saw it." He whipped around as though to clarify the others in the hall were witnessing the same manifestation, but they had all hushed and drawn back at the appearance of the Dragon Prince.

"Just as you see me standing before you now."

"No! No, you are dead!" His hands had begun to shake. "What sorcery is this?"

"Let me assure you I am very real, my lord. And at this time I am taking custody of Heart's Home and all those who dwell within. You and your people will come to no harm provided you do not resist." Rhaegar gave the poor lord a few moments to digest this information before continuing on. "Lord Arryn died some time ago. Does his widow yet rule at the Eyrie?"

Lyonel Corbray's eyes flicked left to a small and unremarkable man momentarily, but, "The Vale has taken no sides in the War," was all he replied.

"And you are?" Rhaegar prompted upon turning his intense violet gaze to the man in question. It was a face he had never before seen.

"Petyr Baelish, your grace," came the simple response along with a sweeping bow.

"It is curious to me why Lord Corbray would seek your approval in answering one of my questions, for certainly that must mean you are a man of some station, though I have never heard mention of you before."

"It is curious to me how a man who has been dead a decade is suddenly dead no more, your grace, but we must learn to accept that life is full of these little oddities. I trust it is your intention to seek your birthright?"

"Right now it is my intention to know you better," Rhaegar supplied mildly. In a room full of shocked and fearful expressions, this man's self-assurance interested him greatly. "Lord Corbray clearly either holds you in high regard, or views you as his superior. Since you did not appear at all distressed when he was brought in, I think it unlikely you are friends. Which would lead me to believe that you, Petyr Baelish, have married Jon Arryn's widow and succeeded him as Lord of the Eyrie, thereby making you Lord Corbray's liege lord."

Baelish allowed a smile, but it did not quite touch his gray-green eyes. "You are indeed astute, your grace. It's a shame the minstrels only sing of your prowess as a knight and skill with the harp. I do find a sharp mind so much more impressive, don't you?"

"Were you a widower as well before marrying Lady Arryn, Lord Baelish?"

"Pardon, your grace?"

"The girl standing behind you. You are shielding her from my view intentionally."

"Ah, yes. Alayne Stone. My daughter." Baelish waved for the girl to come to his side, which she did with a timid curtsy for Rhaegar. "Her mother died recently and she has come to stay with me."

"Tell me, what was your mother's name, Alayne?"

"Rosalyn, your grace."

Rhaegar took a moment. "Where were you raised?"

"Gulltown, your grace."

"I was in charge of customs there, your grace, at the request of Jon Arryn." Baelish clasped his hands behind his back. "But perhaps you'd like to continue this conversation in private? It seems to me there is no need for everyone to be out of their beds at this hour."

"No, there isn't. But I think I have heard enough for tonight. We will speak again in the morning, Lord Baelish." Rhaegar nodded to the members of the Golden Company stationed along the perimeter of the hall. "You may all return to your beds," he said to those present.

When the room had been cleared he sat in silence for a long while, considering his options. The Vale would be a powerful ally if he could bring them to his side, but he neither liked nor trusted the new Lord of the Eyrie. Petyr Baelish. Something tugged at the edge of his memory in response to that name, but he couldn't quite bring it back. He would have to procure more information about the man. He was already certain of one thing, however; Baelish had considered himself to be more intelligent than anyone else who had been in the great hall, the Dragon Prince included. And he was hiding something. He had not volunteered his title despite Lyonel Corbray seeking his guidance in the face of Rhaegar's questions.

The girl was another mystery. It was possible she was Baelish's bastard as he claimed, but she had not been raised in Gulltown. There was not a hint of any accent which would suggest she'd grown up in the major port. He wondered why she might lie about something as simple as where she was born.

Turning his thoughts once more to Jon and the missing division of the Golden Company, Rhaegar frowned. If they had been lost at sea then he was not only down the vast majority of his fighting force, he was also absent one of his two truest friends and greatest supporters. He knew that the years spent in exile wouldn't have been bearable without Jon and Arthur.

All of those days seemed to blur together now, and yet at the same time it was as though he could recall each moment clearly. At the time he had been aware he was torturing himself with the guilt, but it had been all that was left to him. Nothing could be changed or fixed, all he had left was the shame and remorse. Plenty of nights Rhaegar had lain awake and mused on whether he had finally reached his breaking point, whether his mind would start to warp and fail him as it had his father. Whether he had pushed himself right up to the precipice of madness and one more tormenting memory of his disgrace would send him tumbling over. But still he hadn't been able to stop or draw back. And all the while, Jon and Arthur had remained by his side.

Rhaegar often thought he was not worthy of their loyalty. While he knew Jon's hatred lay with the Mad King for his bad fortune, Arthur was another matter. He had always felt Arthur's contempt for his decisions although the Dornishman had only ever spoken of it once, and then only to tell him to give Lyanna back. He had never opened his mouth to lay blame at Rhaegar's feet the entire eleven years they'd been in exile, but from time to time the Targaryen Prince had caught his companion watching him, and there had been more emotion in those dark eyes than he could have ever expressed with words.

Now Jon was missing and he had no way of knowing whether Arthur had taken Daenerys to Cape Wrath as was planned or not. If his sworn shield and sister had shown up in Shipbreaker Bay they could well have walked right into the hands of one of the Baratheon bannermen without a notion otherwise.

* * *

"May I… may I speak with the Prince, please?"

Rhaegar lifted his head from the map he'd been engrossed in and looked towards the hallway where the tiny voice had come from.

"Run along, girl. The Prince hasn't time for the whims of children."

Ser Harry Strickland cleared his throat to bring Rhaegar's attention back to the conversation at hand. "As I was saying, I think if we were to-"

"Wait," Rhaegar called to the guard outside the door. "Tell the girl to wait." He met Ser Harry's impatient gaze levelly. "If you'll excuse me for a moment, Ser."

With a stiff bow of his portly figure, the Captain-General exited the room.

Rhaegar knew while their commander was content to sit and twiddle his pudgy thumbs that the Golden Company was not pleased with the lack of activity. It'd been a week since they'd taken Heart's Home, but without the Vale Lords shoring up their numbers, the Dragon Prince was uneasy pushing inland further and possibly being entrapped. He needed more time to think, to figure out a way to win over at least some of the lords to his cause.

Standing, he moved to the doorway and leaned out.

Baelish's bastard was waiting in the hall, her chin tucked down nearly to her chest and her hands clutched together before her.

"Alayne."

The sound of her name brought her eyes darting up, but she immediately dropped into a low curtsy.

"You wished to see me?"

"Oh, yes, your grace. If it is not too great of an inconvenience."

"Please, come in." Rhaegar raised an eyebrow when she hesitated, blushing. "The door will remain open, of course."

"No, I'm sorry, it's…"

"You are worried about Lord Baelish discovering you have come to see me."

Fear tensed her small body, curling her shoulders in. "I-I have made a mistake, your grace. I should not have disturbed you, please forgive me."

"I know you were not raised in Gulltown, Alayne. And that whoever your mother was, she was a highborn lady and you were instructed in courtly manners by a septa just as she was." Rhaegar watched several emotions flicker across her face in rapid succession. "Why you find yourself being claimed as Petyr Baelish's bastard I have not quite pieced together yet." He stepped back from the doorway to allow her entrance, and slowly she slipped past him, wringing her hands.

"Please," she implored softly. "Please close the door."

Obliging her, Rhaegar then crossed the room and took one of the chairs positioned before the hearth, motioning for her to sit in the other. He waited, letting her collect her thoughts and begin in her own time.

"I'm not his daughter. He makes me tell people that, he makes me lie to everyone. I only wanted to go home, and he promised he would take me. He promised. I didn't know what else to do, I… I had no one else to trust and so I trusted him, but I was wrong." It all came out in a rush, a wild flurry of words which Rhaegar had to take a moment to dissect.

"If you are not Alayne Stone, then who are you?" He asked carefully.

Her lower lip was trembling as she fought to keep her composure. "My name is Sansa, your grace. Sansa Stark."

Rhaegar sat back as though he had been struck. "You're Eddard's daughter. The one the Lannisters have been holding hostage."

She nodded, no longer trusting herself to speak.

The tremulous expression she wore made him swallow before going on. "Lady Sansa, I am deeply sorry for your loss." He paused. "He offered to help you escape."

"He poisoned Joffrey and then, and then he said they would try to blame me. That I had done it to get revenge for my family. But it was him all along! I didn't know about the hairnet, I swear! I just wanted to go home! I just wanted to go back to Winterfell!"

"I understand," he insisted, trying to soothe the despairing girl. "But he brought you here and pretended you were his daughter instead."

"He killed Lady Arryn! He shoved her out the Moon Door after she tried to push me out! It wasn't my fault, I didn't want him to kiss me!" She was near hysterics, whatever dam she had built up to hold back the flood of emotions well and truly broken. Tears trickled down her flushed cheeks.

Rhaegar had since learnt of both Petyr Baelish's former position as Master of Coin in King's Landing as well as Lady Lysa Arryn's unfortunate fall, which had been curiously blamed on a musician. "She was your mother's sister. Didn't she know you?" He could see it now. He could see the Tully blue eyes, the auburn roots peeking out from beneath whatever had been used to dye her hair.

"Yes, but she was so very jealous. She only cared for little Robin and him. She said I looked like my mother. Too much like my mother," Sansa explained in misery.

And then he remembered.

"_He isn't anyone, really. His father is some insignificant lord of one of the Fingers. He was fostered in Riverrrun with the Tully's. When father and Lord Hoster agreed that Brandon should wed Lady Catelyn, he told Brandon that Catelyn loved him. That she was his."_

"_I suppose that did not go over well with your brother?"_

"_Brandon was furious. Can you imagine, that little spit of a boy challenging Brandon to a duel? I thought he would be cleaved full in two."_

"_But your brother spared him."_

"_Well, he had no choice. Catelyn begged mercy. I think she was always fond of the boy, but not as he was fond of her."_

Petyr Baelish. Littlefinger.

Lyanna had been half in her cups when she'd recounted the tale. She had hardly ever spoken of her family when they were together. And now her niece was sitting in front of him, crying and utterly alone.

"Please, your grace… I just want to go home."

But Winterfell was in ruins, put to the torch by the Ironborn and all of its inhabitants executed. And they'd since received reports on a massacre which had taken place at the Twins during the marriage of Edmure Tully and one of the Frey brood. All of the Stark bannermen had been slaughtered, the Northern army decimated. Betrayed by their own. The Red Wedding, they were calling it.

"I know… I know they're all dead. I know someone will come for me, too. But I have nowhere else to go. Don't make me go back to him. Please."

Rhaegar frowned deeply. "No, you will not go back to him, Lady Sansa." But neither could she go to Winterfell. And with her Uncle Edmure held hostage by the Freys and her Great-uncle Bryndyn besieged at Riverrun, the fact remained he had no idea how to help the girl.

Sansa was sobbing, the last vestiges of her control gone.

He glanced away, into the flames licking up the grate in the hearth. He couldn't make false promises, and she was right. They were dead. All dead.

"_I'll wait for you."_

But she hadn't.


	15. Chapter 15

"The Vale."

Jon's eyes snapped up from the desk and the correspondence he'd been writing. He surveyed her suspiciously, trying to decide how much she knew.

"You weren't going to tell me, were you?" Lyanna already knew the answer to this question, she had known it the moment she had overheard a few members of the Golden Company chatting over the lumpy oatmeal and stale bread they'd broken their fasts with.

"There's no reason for you to be privy to the movements of our forces, She-Wolf. You aren't one of us, you're a captive. Should I have you tied up again to make it easier for you to remember your place?"

"Is that what he told you to do? Hold me here as a prisoner?" She clenched her hands tightly into fists at her sides to still their shaking. If she was honest with herself, she didn't know what to believe anymore. The men had spoken of him as though it were of little consequence that he should be dead. That he was supposed to be dead. It had been more interesting to them that the Dragon Prince was at Heart's Home, as though he should have been somewhere else entirely.

Jaw tightening, Jon stood up from the desk. "It's what's best," he finally responded.

Lyanna was reeling. "He doesn't know. He doesn't know I'm here at all."

"Nor will he. You're staying here with the garrison I leave to keep Bolton from following us south."

"You can't… my niece." She was too stunned to argue, too overwhelmed with the knowledge he was alive. Alive and in the Vale.

"I've told you the girl is not my problem."

Shaking her head, Lyanna struggled to rein in her whirling thoughts. "If you knew this was what he would want you would tell him. You wouldn't be keeping me a secret," she managed to rationalize.

"You have no idea what he wants. You had a few months with him a lifetime ago. _I_ know him. I have suffered with him. I have watched him tear himself apart over the mistakes he made for _you_," Jon spat with vehemence, the missive he had been working on now crumpled between his white knuckles. "You know _nothing_, least of all Rhaegar's mind."

"That may be so," she granted him, but did not shrink back from his obvious loathing. "I just can't help but wonder if you are prepared to deal with the consequences when he learns you didn't tell him. Because he will find out."

"Not if you died from infection of your wounds."

Lyanna felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach as she took in the terrible coldness of those words.

Jon's features settled into a bitter smile. "You might be surprised by how commonly that occurs in the midst of a war, She-Wolf. Men die slow, excruciating deaths after something as minor as a scratch becomes infected. How _are_ your injuries faring, by the way?"

Something snapped inside her at the callousness of his threat. She was around the only piece of furniture which separated them in an instant and kicked the chair away from him. "Do it!" she urged in a frenzy, her chest heaving. "Do it! Kill me!"

Bewildered by her wild taunts, Jon actually drew back. This clearly was not the reaction he had been expecting.

"You have a sword, do it!" Lyanna pressed with fervor as she followed his retreat. "But do not think you won't have to look into my eyes as I die, _Ser_. Do not think when you tell him, you won't remember them. And do not think he won't strike you dead himself if he _ever_ learns of your treachery," she hissed maliciously.

* * *

That night when she slept, she dreamt of him. Of that fleeting space of time when they'd been together.

"_What do you think they are?"_

"_What do I think what are?"_

"_The stars. What do you think they really are?"_

"_What do__** you**__ think they are?"_

"_I don't know, I'm not the scholar."_

"_Scholar? Is that what I am?"_

"_You are so many things, but most of all, a mystery."_

"_Am I such a stranger to you?"_

"_Yes. You live inside your head, Rhaegar, and I live outside. Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all."_

"_I hold no secrets from you. Ask me anything."_

"_Why did you crown me Queen of Love and Beauty?"_

"_Because you are the Queen of love and beauty. And a queen must have a crown."_

"_And your wife?"_

"_Elia is Queen of patience and kindness. And she'll wear her crown someday."_

"_Yes. I suppose she will."_

"_Lyanna… it's you I love."_

"_How can you say that? How can you say she will be your queen one day, and in the next breath tell me you love me?"_

"_How can I not? Elia will be Queen one day. But she'll be Westeros' queen, not mine. I didn't choose her, Lyanna. I chose you."_

"_Don't tell me you feel nothing for her. She just had your son, Rhaegar. That didn't happen by accident."_

"_No. The Seven Kingdoms needed an heir, and now they have one. I did my duty."_

"_Is that what you Southron lords call it, then? And if it is duty when you share Elia's bed, what is it when you share mine?"_

"_Freedom. Breathing. Living. It's finally opening my eyes and seeing the world around me. It's feeling when I have been numb my entire life. It's everything, Lyanna. __**You**__ are everything."_

"…_You see? You've read too many poems."_

"_Or you haven't read enough."_

"_I don't read silly love stories."_

"_No, you steal armor and enter yourself into tourneys as the Knight of the Laughing Tree. And I am the mysterious one?"_

"_It was only the one tourney, I'll have you know."_

"_Well, it's hard to imagine any adversity we couldn't overcome with your brute strength and my scholarly knowledge of silly love stories."_

"_I hate it, you know. I hate how unbelievably right it feels to love you when I know it's so undeniably wrong."_

"_It isn't wrong. This isn't wrong. It's everything else that's wrong."_

* * *

"I don't know what to tell them."

"The truth."

"Which truth? The Queen's truth? The Tyrell's truth? The truth everyone tells themselves to make them feel better?"

"Your truth, Sansa." Rhaegar watched the slight girl as she sat demurely before him, her Tully blues seeking comfort in her hands. They had washed as much of the dye from her hair as was possible and now the copper shone through readily in the sunlight.

"What if they don't believe me?" she asked quietly.

"We can't make people believe. We can only show them the truth and let their eyes tell them what they see is real."

"And if their eyes tell them I am a silly girl telling stories?"

Rhaegar shook his head. "You doubt yourself too easily." He felt for the child. She'd been through far too much, and what he was asking of her was no small thing. He couldn't predict what the reactions of the Vale Lords would be, but it was a necessary risk. They needed to know who the new Lord Protector of the Vale really was.

Sansa had lifted her chin and was peering at him intrepidly. "Do you?"

"I doubt myself every second of every day," he answered her earnestly and then offered his hand to help her up. "But you I have not doubted once."

* * *

Pulling the tent's flap aside, Jon roused her with an abrupt, "Pack your things, we're leaving."

Lyanna barely had time to sit up from her bedroll, still blinking sleep from her eyes. "Where? Are you taking me to Greywater Watch?"

"No." But he was gone, the response tossed back over his shoulder as he strode away.

"Where then?!" she shouted after him from within her tent, frustrated.

"Rhaegar has won over the Vale Lords. We march on the Twins."

Lyanna pushed her blankets off in a stupor and began to hastily gather her meager belongings. She could hear the encampment being disassembled around her and didn't even have time to grab food to break her fast before they were moving away from Moat Cailin.

* * *

The next days passed exceptionally slowly, it seemed. Jon avoided her like the plague, and Lyanna was content to allow him to do so. She wasn't exactly enthusiastic to be in his company again after the way their last conversation had ended either. The problem was, there was no one else to talk to. The Golden Company may be vastly richer than other sellsword companies, but they were sellswords nonetheless, and lacking in all aspects of courteous and acceptable behaviour. While they didn't harass her beyond the odd crude remark, she didn't fool herself into believing every last one of them wouldn't happily have their way with her if they thought they wouldn't be severely punished.

This meant her only company during the long hours in the saddle were her thoughts, and those she would have rather avoided along with Jon Connington. She wondered desperately whether she would recognize the man Rhaegar Targaryen had become. Eleven years in exile; torturing himself over mistakes he'd made, according to Jon. It was humiliating and painful to realize that all the while she'd been locked in her room refusing to face the reality her choices had created, he'd been across the Narrow Sea living with the consequences of his own. Did he despise her now? Had her words to Jon been no more than an empty threat? Would he have felt more peace if she was dead? If he didn't have to ever again stand face-to-face with the mistake that had cost him his family and his realm?

And so she spent her days riding in silent apprehension and her nights reliving all the precious moments of happiness she had known in her life.

* * *

"You're leaving."

The flames were swaying and leaping in the hearth, and Rhaegar had been staring into them, but not seeing the fire. "Yes." He glanced over to the small, hesitating figure in the doorway. "Tomorrow," he supplied for her.

"And I'm staying here."

"For now. Unless you would prefer to stay with your cousin in the Eyrie?"

"No." The response was immediate. She frowned at herself. "Do you think that's awful?"

"No. Come sit, Sansa."

Moving into the room, she complied, and the light from the fire burnished her silky auburn locks.

"You should be sleeping," he pointed out gently.

"I can't."

"Neither can I."

"I didn't know her," Sansa imparted after a brief pause. "My Aunt Lyanna," she clarified when his expression spoke to his confusion. "No one spoke about her. It was as though she was already dead."

Rhaegar let out a slow breath. He knew what she wanted, but he wasn't sure he was prepared to oblige her. His memories of Lyanna belonged to him, the only things he had left of her now. Sharing them seemed somehow like giving her away.

Sansa lowered her gaze, taking his silence as the refusal it was meant to be. "I'm sorry."

"She was never dead to me," he forced himself to say. She had been alive and obstinate and beguiling in every last one of his memories. She had been everything.

* * *

It was late. Far too late to still be awake, and yet Lyanna was. She couldn't sleep, not in the shadow of the fortress where most everyone she had ever known had been barbarously slain. And certainly not inside it, where she could only assume Jon was, along with all of the other members of rank of the Golden Company. The two men he had assigned to 'protect' her had grudgingly struck a tent for her in the yard where camp had been set up. It was more likely they'd been instructed to keep her out of his way, but she didn't care. At least she didn't need to fear any lusty drunks paying her a surprise visit in the middle of the night if they were about.

With the bulk of their force laying siege to Riverrun, the Twins had not been well prepared for an attack of the magnitude they had fallen victim to. Along with the portion of the Golden Company Jon had led, Rhaegar had also managed to garner support from Houses Royce, Redfort, Waynwood, Hunter, Belmore, and Templeton.

Lyanna clenched her teeth when she recalled the smug expression Walder Frey had worn the night he'd ordered them all massacred. She still didn't know if she'd been spared intentionally or merely by chance. And it seemed she never would, as the Late Lord Frey had taken a lethal dose of milk of the poppy when it had become clear they would not stand the assault, and died peacefully in his sleep rather than face surrender. He had cheated her the satisfaction of watching him be executed, but he was no longer breathing the same air that she was while the bodies of her family and companions rotted, and that was all that mattered.

"Where is she?"

"Inside, your grace."

Time stopped at the posing of that simple question. Lyanna caught and held her breath, straining to catch any further exchange. She knew that voice, had dreamt of that voice a thousand times. The familiar cadence and timbre, it gripped her heart and squeezed violently, but still she did not dare exhale. She waited with burning lungs, willing it to sound again, to say anything. Everything.

But there was only an awful silence.

The lantern perched across from her on a stool flickered, making shadows dance across the canvas walls. She felt the air stir and then heard footfalls, growing quieter, moving away.

Lyanna released her breath on a broken sigh, head dropping down to be cradled in her hands.

He had come this far and no further. All that had been separating them was a sheet of fabric, and he had turned and walked away. After eleven years.

Suddenly the tent was too confining; it was suffocating her, closing in, pressing down. Snatching up the lantern, she crossed to the flap, thrust it aside, and stepped out into the chill night air. One of the sellswords stood blocking her way, and she pursed her lips impatiently. "I can't sleep, I need to walk a little." Where exactly did Jon think she was going to run off to?

The figure didn't move, and Lyanna noticed that for once there were no gold or precious gems winking back at her from the glow of her lantern. She raised the lamp up, expecting to find Jon Connington himself come to snap some new order at her, but the moment the light touched the first strands of silver blond, her fingers flexed and the lantern crashed to the ground. The glass shattered and the flame immediately guttered out, plunging them into darkness.

For the space of a few breaths nothing happened. Lyanna's arm had fallen back to her side, and she stared through the blackness with trepidation, seeing only the outline of the man before her.

"I didn't mean to startle you, I'm sorry," he spoke at last, and it was purely, distinctly, and unmistakably Rhaegar's voice.

A million words formed in Lyanna's mind, but the two which rolled off her tongue were disappointing even to her own ears. "It's alright."

"Do you have another inside?"

"Sorry?" She asked dumbly.

"A lantern. Do you have another inside? Or a candle, anything?" He inquired patiently.

Glancing over her shoulder to the tent, Lyanna shook her head. "No, I don't."

"If you'd like to go back inside and wait, I'll find one."

She wanted to tell him that she would go as well, to grab him and never let go, because she feared very much he would walk away and she would wake up and it would have all been a dream. But that was ridiculous and childish. Instead she dipped her head in acknowledgement and ducked inside.

Listening to him walk away was unbearable, but Lyanna forced herself to sit on the stool, and by the time he returned her fingers were white from gripping its edge. The light blinded her as he entered. She couldn't help it, she rose when he came in, and they stood facing each other silently again a moment.

It was he who broke the lull again. "I wasn't sure if you would be awake," he admitted.

"I don't much like it here," Lyanna responded without thought, shocking herself. She floundered for some way to correct her bluntness, but his beautiful violet eyes were holding her, studying her. "I'm sorry," she eventually was able to breathe.

"No." Rhaegar turned his attention to the lamp dangling at his side, brow furrowed. "He shouldn't have brought you here. I wasn't aware, I'm sorry."

Her stomach lurched at this confession, and she gave a small nod.

"I thought you dead, Lyanna, with the rest," he went on at last, voice thick with the emotions he was holding back. "I would have come sooner if I had known you were here."

Lyanna felt a tremulous smile tug at her lips. "I've grown accustomed to waiting." She knew the moment he raised his head that he had not forgotten the last words that had passed between them eleven years earlier.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: This is the last time I'm going to do this. I welcome all reviews, but please be considerate enough to review with an actual account and not as guests if you have any real desire for me to be able to respond to you. I'm not going to continue to address Guest reviews at the start of each chapter.**

**In response to Guest: Daenerys is 11 in this fic and not 13. As is already stated, changing her birth date would have complicated matters unnecessarily. Queen Rhaella died in childbed on Dragonstone during the Rebellion. The Rebellion was only 11 years ago in my fic, so it follows Daenerys needed to be 11. I'm not sure where it's stated that girls don't become capable of reproduction until they're 13 or whether this is an arbitrary age you've come up with yourself, but I assure you girls can and do 'flower' before the age of 13. I did. And to say Daenerys 'flowered' at 9 or 10 is not a stretch. It happens. She wouldn't have been married off to Khal Drogo until she was capable of bearing children, which she DID in this fic just as she did in canon. It happens 2 years earlier in my fic. That isn't a plot hole. It's entirely possible.**

**As for Ned taking Robb South - Bran is still in Winterfell. Rickon isn't born in this fic, true, but Ned does have TWO sons. So it's not as though by taking Robb he is taking his only male heir out of the North. I'm not going to argue semantics, I decided it was plausible for Ned to take Robb with him as since Sansa is betrothed to Joffery, it's going to be imperative that future generations of Starks and Baratheons are capable of working together cohesively. Robb, like the other Stark children, had never been South before so it's reasonable Ned would have wished for him to be exposed to the King's court. Since his sister was going to be Queen someday and all. Yes, there is the letter from Lysa to consider, but once again, Ned is going to King's Landing as Robert's Hand with the intention of helping Robert get his court under control. He trusts Robert - they were like brothers at one time. Ned is naive. He doesn't expect the things that are going to happen will happen until it's too late. So to say he wouldn't bring Robb - I don't think that's true. He may be wary, but he believes he can 'fix' things in King's Landing, or he wouldn't have agreed to serve Robert as his Hand. **

**And as I already stated, Lyanna's hand is forced with Theon. She's facing revolt from the Stark bannermen, Catelyn released their best hope of reaching a favourable outcome with the Lannisters - she's getting desperate. She doesn't know Theon. She may have been raised in the North, but again, this is the first time she's ever been in a position of leadership. She pretended to be a knight and rode in the tourney at Harrenhal - she makes rash decisions. That's part of her nature. She knows Theon may betray them, but she's running out of options. She feels she has to do SOMETHING.**

**You don't have to agree with my justifications or reasons for writing these characters the way that I am, but this is my interpretation of events and people. **

**And now - I apologize to EVERYONE else reading this, I don't like responding this way, but neither do I like to ignore reviews - here is the chapter.**

* * *

"I've grown accustomed to waiting," she said, and when he lifted his head and saw the quavering smile she wore, he knew this was Lyanna. The same Lyanna, and yet not. She was taller and her features were leaner, but even eleven years couldn't tame the wild beauty she exuded.

There should have been many and more things for him to say to her, but he could think of none. In all those years he had never let himself believe or hope that he would see her again because facing the harsh reality of his situation was what he had deserved. And so he'd never planned what he would say, never imagined there would be an opportunity like this. It was appalling and incredible all at once, being this close to her again. There was nothing he could have wanted more, nothing the Gods themselves could have given him that was better than seeing her stormy gray eyes, but his guilt was like a chain wrapped firmly around his heart, weighing it down, holding it back. And the more he ached to speak to her, to touch her, the tighter it constricted.

"Rhaegar," she called him back gently from the hidden recesses of his mind. The timorous smile had been replaced by a more doleful one. "I see nothing has changed. You are still in there and I am still out here."

"Everything has changed," he couldn't help correcting her wearily, suddenly bone tired. It was too much, too much to take in and unravel. Outside the tent a war was in progress, but inside there was only Lyanna and his remorse. She was right. Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed. Lyanna held out her hand, and belatedly he realized it was for the lamp. But the moment his eyes fell on the crude bandages encircling her wrists he stepped closer and set the light on the stool. "What happened?"

"You will be here all night if you expect me to answer that in its entirety," she quipped half-heartedly, though her arm was tucked behind her under his scrutiny. "It's alright, really." She was placating him. He could see from the haunted aspect lurking deep behind those gray eyes and the dark shadows beneath them that it was not alright, not at all.

Rhaegar frowned as he took in the fading bruises at her temple, the freshly healed over gash. She was thin, but not merely as a result of her body fully making the transition from the adolescent he had known to a woman, he now recognized. She was pale and malnourished. While Jon had said she'd been a prisoner of the Lord of the Dreadfort, he had not mentioned what that had entailed, and suddenly Rhaegar was cursing himself for not noticing it immediately. He had been so overwhelmed by Lyanna that he had not really _looked_ at Lyanna.

"Stop," she was demanding without warning, her chin lifted. "Stop staring at me like I'm broken."

"Lyanna-"

"I'm not."

Lifting his hands in conciliation, Rhaegar gave a slow nod. He couldn't argue with her, not now. "Sansa Stark is in the Vale. Lady Waynwood has agreed to take her into her care until such a time as is safe for her to return to Winterfell," he divulged in an offering of peace.

"The Vale?" Lyanna's eyes had widened with the unexpectedness of this information. "Is she well? How did she end up in the Vale of Arryn?"

"Another long story, I'm afraid. But she is well." He gave pause. "She believes you dead, Lyanna. She doesn't know she has any family left."

"Waynwood, you said?"

Rhaegar allowed a corner of his mouth to quirk. She had always been terrible with the Southron Houses. For most of her life the world had stopped at the Neck. "In Ironoaks. She will be well looked after there," he assured.

She was still digesting the revelation that her niece was safe, that at least one of Ned's children was alive and well, and for a second she let her guard down. The amount of fear and pain that he saw in her in that second nearly took his breath away.

"Lyanna…" But there was nothing he could say that would change the fact she had lost them all. Instead he reached out to take ahold of her elbow, gently tugging her close enough that he could wrap his arms around her.

She didn't protest. She didn't tremble or sob. She merely pressed her cheek to the hollow of his throat and listened as he drew his even breaths, stirring her hair softly. "I am lost. I am lost and I can't see a way home," he heard her whisper, voice broken.

Tucking her head beneath his chin, Rhaegar closed his eyes. "Not lost. Just waylaid," he murmured consolingly. Her tears left hot, wet trails as they slid down his neck. He stroked his hands slowly up and down the length of her back, revelling in the feel of her thin frame held tightly to him.

"Rhaegar, there's been a raven." Jon's voice penetrated the canvas walls of the tent easily.

Lyanna's shoulders stiffened in response, easing back away from his embrace.

"It can wait." He wanted to hold onto the moment, to hold onto her and the simplicity of comforting her in her time of weakness. Because for that split second nothing else had mattered; not the war, not his guilt, not the eleven years it had been since he'd been this close to her. Nothing had mattered but Lyanna.

"It can't," Jon insisted, tone decidedly impatient. "The Old Lion is dead."

And as quickly as that, the moment vanished. She stepped backward and the war and everything else came charging back in again, so much so that the Narrow Sea may as well have stretched between them along with the mere hand's breadth which actually did. Rhaegar searched her face for any remaining trace of the illusion of past they had shared, but she would not meet his violet gaze.

"Just go," she urged resolutely instead.

"I'm not leaving you out here, Lyanna, it isn't safe."

That was all it took to snap her eyes up, mouth setting stubbornly. "I'm not stepping foot inside those walls."

"Rhaegar, we need to discuss-"

"My pavilion, then. I will be in the keep tonight and you won't be disturbed there," Rhaegar reasoned. He hardly trusted the Golden Company to fight for him, he certainly wasn't fool enough to trust them with her safety.

But Lyanna was shaking her head. "Even so, you know that would be unseemly."

"I believe that ship has long since sailed," Jon's sardonic declaration preceded him as he swept the flap aside and joined them inside what were becoming increasingly cramped quarters. "And the news of Tywin Lannister's death is not the only word the raven brought. Stannis Baratheon is at the Wall."

Rhaegar did not turn towards his friend, though his expression had become steely along with his voice. "You will go back inside and await my return to speak of whatever message the raven may have carried."

"I think the movements of our enemies may be a little more pressing than where you are going to house your mistress," Jon went on without much regard for his liege's warning. He did, however, appear completely taken aback by the speed with which Rhaegar's grip fastened around his collar, causing him to stumble. The silent fury which burned behind the Dragon Prince's eyes was not something he had ever been subject to before.

"You forget yourself, Jon." Rhaegar's words were level and strangely at odds with the barely restrained anger which seemed to roll off of him in waves.

Beyond him Lyanna was struck similarly speechless by this reaction, her surprise written plainly in her features.

With a single movement, Rhaegar thrust Jon roughly backward. "Go. Now."

It was in both shock and disgust that Jon realized those few brief moments locked under the fiery glare of his lifelong companion had left him covered in sweat and trembling. He left the tent without further comment.

"What are you going to do?" Lyanna asked when she finally managed to school her thoughts.

When he turned a questioning look toward her, she could find no hint of the animosity he had just displayed left. Just like that he was Rhaegar again, calm and collected and in control.

"About Stannis," she supplied.

"I don't know yet," he replied truthfully as he drew a hand down over his face, exhaling. "Stay in my pavilion tonight. Tomorrow we will find a more suitable arrangement."

Even if she had wanted to argue, the fatigued slope to his shoulders and the knowledge that he yet had a long night ahead of him prevented Lyanna from protesting further. Their current situation was by no means a simple one, and sleeping in his quarters would likely only complicate matters further, but she didn't have the heart to refuse him this small peace of mind.

"Alright."

Casting a glance around, Rhaegar reached once more for the lantern on the stool. "I'll wait outside for you to collect your belongings?"

With a self-deprecating smile, Lyanna shook her head. "I have nothing of value anymore." She moved quickly to exit the tent so as not to catch any sympathetic remarks.

Following, he allowed her to walk a few paces ahead until she was prepared to slow enough for their steps to match up. It was obvious her lapse in strength had passed, and so Rhaegar allowed their previous conversation to go unfinished. In fact, he didn't press her to talk at all as they made their way toward the limply hanging dragon pendant which mounted the peak of his tent. He motioned for Lyanna to enter, but remained on the other side of the opening himself. "If there is anything you should require, you need only ask. But please, stay inside until I return in the morning."

"I've been travelling with these men since they took Moat Cailin, Rhaegar. I know who to trust and who not to."

"Perhaps you could advise me on that tomorrow, then."

She did roll her eyes at his attempt at humour, but it did not erase the tension that had settled between them.

"Lyanna, I know there is much for us to speak of, and I…" Hesitating, Rhaegar took a step forward to set the lamp on a table just inside the entrance. "We will. Soon," he finished lamely, brow furrowed. It was a conversation he was both longing for and dreading, but in her expression he could discern nothing, and that only served to make him more anxious.

"You have other matters to attend to," she reminded him with a half-hearted shrug. "And you're right."

When the only response she received was a slight inclination of his silver head in confusion, Lyanna offered a somber smile in conjunction with his earlier statement of, "Everything has changed."


	17. Chapter 17

Cape Wrath was theirs. Rain House and Mistwood had been taken unawares by Daenerys' army, which had sailed from Sunspear and made land under the cover of darkness. With their numbers drastically cut by the time the bloody flux had finally run its course, Arthur had not wanted to chance a full out attack by day, despite his Princess' protests that these were the tactics of cowards. When he had reminded her that only a third of her fighting force had battle experience, her opinion on the matter softened just enough for her to permit him the final decision. He could not trust to the dragons, whom she was still having difficulty controlling, and so the surest road to success lay in a strategically timed assault, which would afford them the least amount of casualties while also gaining their untried army a measure of experience.

Stonehelm posed a larger obstacle. The dragons had begun to once again hunt livestock, making their movements easily predicted, and its lord, Gulian Swann was a man not ignorant in the art of wars. Since his participation in Robert's Rebellion he had preferred to stay out of further conflict and had instead sent his eldest son Donal when called upon first to fight for Renly's cause and then for Stannis'. After being captured during the battle on the Blackwater and ransomed back, the heir to Stonehelm had been forced to swear allegiance to the then king, Joffrey, though his father had yet to declare for the Lannisters or indeed anyone. Well-fortified as it was, Lord Gulian had seemed prepared to simply wait for Daenerys' force to grow bored and leave for the first few days following their arrival at Stonehelm.

And then Daenerys had sent him an ultimatum in the form of a message attached to the scorched body of one of his sentries who had grown overly bold one evening and fired an arrow from the ramparts at Rhaegal as he'd flown by. Arthur had not been pleased by her reaction, but she had secured them an audience with the lord to discuss terms of surrender. Or so they had assumed.

"Explain to me why I should not have you all killed where you stand."

The comment caused Quentyn Martell's companion, Ser Gerris Drinkwater, to bristle, and his personal guard, Ser Archibald Yronwood, to clench his giant fists at his sides. The Dornish Prince himself flushed with indignation, but it was Daenerys who answered an aging Gulian Swann, her lilac eyes flashing dangerously.

"Because, my lord, if you insist upon taking such a foolish notion into your head, I would remind you that my dragons wait outside your walls, eager for the taste of seared flesh. And they will burn Stonehelm to ashes along with all who call it home, unless you accept the terms I have set and take up no arms against me or my people."

"Those pets you name dragons are little more than flying lizards, easily dispatched by a few well-placed arrows."

"If you thought that was the case I have no doubt they would already be dead."

Arthur's chest swelled with pride for the young woman at his side when she refused to rise to her opponent's baiting. He watched as the gray haired man seated before them leaned back, considering his very few options.

"You cannot truly expect to take the Stormlands with that hastily cobbled together excuse for an army, _Princess_."

"No. I expect to take the Seven Kingdoms, Lord Swann."

With a derisive snort the Lord of Stonehelm dismissed her statement, waving it away as though neither it nor his current situation were of any more concern to him than the frequent storms which blew through his lands. "Why don't you explain to the girl what happened to the last Targaryen to cross a storm lord, Ser Arthur? I believe you know the story well."

Out of the corner of his eye Arthur saw Daenerys' short-lived composure rapidly deteriorating. "Pointless taunting will not serve to change the predicament you find yourself in, Lord Swann. Either accept the terms of surrender and spare the lives of your people or prepare yourself to live out the last of your hours as Lord of Stonehelm much sooner than you had probably anticipated," he interjected before she could give away any information regarding Rhaegar or the Golden Company.

The drumming of his fingers upon the arm of the worn chair he occupied was the only sound to fill the room for a few moments. "Your beasts stay outside the walls."

* * *

"I don't trust that man."

"Nor should you. He was just forced to surrender the land his family has ruled over for many and more years to a girl, Daenerys. His pride has been sorely wounded and he will be seeking any and all opportunities for vengeance, just as the Sons of Harpy did."

The obstinacy written plainly across her features at this mention of her failings in Meereen told him he had struck a cord. Before she could argue, he continued on.

"I want you to be careful. I want you to be safe. We have many leagues to travel and many battles to fight before we reach King's Landing, and a rash comment made in anger is just as likely to see you dead as any enemy weapon. You know that you will be underestimated, and you know how to use that to your advantage. Don't let your temper or your pride cloud your judgement."

By the time he had finished speaking Daenerys still wore a miffed expression, but she did not bother voicing her ire. Instead she turned her attention back to the map spread before her, finger finding the Twins and circling it slowly.

"Should we send word to him?"

"No. A raven is far more likely to fall into the hands of the Tyrells or Lannisters than it is to reach your brother."

"Then we march on Storm's End."

Moving to tower over the chart, Arthur surveyed the seat of House Baratheon with doubt. "They will be ready and waiting for us. A siege could take weeks or months, time we don't have."

"And if we do not take it, Stannis will have a stronghold to return to and could rally the support of his bannermen again. We don't have enough men to leave more than a small garrison here, and there is still the matter of Griffin's Roost."

Which was exactly why Jon had been supposed to deal with the storm lords, he had been their best hope of turning them to Rhaegar's cause.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Princess. Storm's End will not lend support to King's Landing, and for the time being, that is all we need be concerned with."

Silently he took Daenerys' hand into his own, her pale complexion in stark contrast to his sundrenched skin, and trailed her slender finger across the map until it came to rest over the dark scrawl of another location. Her lavender eyes darted up to his and though he could sense her reluctance to cede the point, she gave a slow nod of agreement.

* * *

Dusk saw Lyanna back in her own tent, which now seemed further cramped and dismal after a night and a day spent in Rhaegar's pavilion; easily a palace by comparison. She had enjoyed a proper bath and warm food, and while she didn't like to think to whom they had formerly belonged, the clothes that had been set out for her fit well enough and were not in tatters, another marked improvement.

But when the hours had stretched from morning to afternoon, and then on from that, she had grown first restless and then frustrated with waiting. There were a thousand, thousand things she had wanted to say to him the previous night and had not been able to, and twice that number of questions she needed answered. Both Jon's scornful interruption and then Rhaegar's weak promise had cut her deeply, and his lengthening absence had only served to exacerbate the feeling. Finally becoming agitated past the point of patience, she had taken a long stroll through the encampment that had ended where she now stood. The guards which had dogged her every step, she assumed at their commander's order, had posted themselves outside. Although far from the coarse men Jon had enlisted to 'protect' her, she still did not fully trust them, even if Rhaegar apparently did.

"I thought we agreed you were going to wait for me in my pavilion," his steady tones cut into her thoughts as though she were not the only one privy to them.

Facing him, Lyanna's fingers abandoned the braid they had been coaxing her errant locks into and fell instead to her sides. "And I thought you were going to come when you said you would this time." She could sense him flinch away from the accusation behind her words, his brow creasing slowly.

"Lyanna, I'm sorry. There were other matters that could not wait."

"But I can?" she prompted bitterly.

"I came as soon as I was able." He regarded her with a quiet reserve, and she knew immediately that he was trying to decide the best way to diffuse the situation, which only incensed her more.

"If my presence here is in any way distracting you from your war, you need only say and I will gladly leave you to reclaim your throne."

"You started this war, Lyanna. And I am going to bring it to an end."

Lyanna's fingernails bit into her palms, so tightly were her fists clenched as she glared at him. "Joffrey Lannister started this war when he ordered my brother executed on the steps of Baelor's Sept, and I wish you better luck with the outcome of this war than the last you participated in."

"If you want to leave, just leave," Rhaegar urged in sudden exasperation, jerking aside the tent's flap for her. His violet eyes bore into her own, daring her to simply walk away. "No one is stopping you."

Choking down the panic that instantly constricted her throat, she forced her feet to carry her towards the narrow slit of darkening sky revealed beyond the tent, but found her elbow gripped firmly before she could step out. Pulled aside, she could do little but stare up into the Dragon Prince's pained expression.

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded of her, his voice for the first time anything but level.

Ineffectually Lyanna attempted to pry her arm free of his grasp, all the while struggling to hold onto her fading anger. "I can't wait anymore, Rhaegar. I have to know. I need to know what happened," she explained, sounding far more desperate than she had intended.

"I can only tell you what I know, Lyanna." His cryptic warning was followed by a moment's pause as he wrestled with himself over what he had to tell her and whether she would believe it or not. "Everyone says I died that day on the Trident, because I did. I remember Robert's warhammer coming down and I remember the pain was like nothing I had ever felt before and never want to again. I know I tried to breathe, I knew that I had to breathe, but it was impossible. And even if I had been able to, I could feel the blood filling my throat and I knew it would choke me. The last thing I remember was realizing that I was dying, that if I couldn't breathe and I was drowning in my own blood, I was going to die. Had to die. I closed my eyes because there was nothing else I could do.

And when I opened them next, fire was everywhere, and I got up and walked away from my funeral pyre. I found Arthur and he took me away from the ford. When I woke again the war was lost. We sailed to Essos." His hold on her had only tightened by the time he lapsed into silence, searching her face apprehensively.

There were no words which seemed sufficient to follow what she had just been told; that, coupled with the intensity of Rhaegar's gaze as he held her captive both physically and mentally, made it impossible to respond for several long seconds. "I don't understand," was what she managed breathlessly in the end, grateful for his fingers locked around her arm now as she wasn't sure she would still be standing without the support.

"You don't have to understand - _I_ don't understand. But please say that you believe me, Lyanna. Tell me you believe me," he implored.

And she had no other choice. She could not doubt the fear that she had seen take hold of him when he'd spoken of dying, even if nothing else made any sense. He believed he'd died with every fiber of his being, that much was undeniable. Everyone else believed he'd died. Robert believed he'd died, Ned believed it, as did many hundreds and thousands of others, some who had _seen_ him die and some who had not. And if she believed, too, that he'd died, and she could see that he now stood before her, his beautiful indigo eyes frantically studying her, then she must in turn believe that somehow, something had brought him back from death. She didn't understand, but she had to believe.

So, numbly, she gave a nod. "I believe you." She wasn't sure what reaction she expected from him, but relief was not amongst the emotions she watched him battling with internally.

Although it did loosen a fraction, his grip did not leave her arm as he turned and propelled her out of the tent. She felt his other hand move to the small of her back as he guided her back through the encampment and only once they were inside his pavilion and she was seated on a chest before the brazier did he release her.

Lyanna sat silently as he turned his attention to methodically building up the small fire, his face once more a mask of stoicism. She knew there had been many and more questions flooding her mind, but in the aftermath of his blunt confession she could not straighten out her thoughts enough to recall even one.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, startling her.

Under normal circumstances her pride would have allowed her only one answer to his question. "A little," she informed him, feeling she owed him this small measure of honesty. She knew that even for Rhaegar; who had always harboured an acute interest in prophecies of old and one's destiny, which she had never understood, admitting to and believing in being called back from death must be a challenge. She couldn't lie to him on the very heels of the blind trust he had just shared with her in telling her.

He straightened up from his position before the now dancing flames and poured two goblets of wine, one of which he offered to her.

Reaching out to accept, Lyanna's fingers brushed his as they closed around the stem of the glass, and she met his gaze reluctantly.

"I'm sorry."

She knew on the surface he was referring to her arm, but the brief flash of remorse reflected in the depths of those blatantly Targaryen eyes told her he was apologizing for so many more things he could not say.


	18. Chapter 18

"I haven't seen Jon around lately."

"I wasn't given to understand you two got on well during your time together."

"I think you have more than a simple understanding of it after his comments last night." Lyanna waited, but Rhaegar didn't seem inclined to discuss the episode she was referring to. He had yet to drink more than a mouthful of the wine he had poured them, while her glass was long empty. "Did you ask him to stay away from me?" she prompted, not about to let it go.

"No. I told him to."

For some reason this information did not satisfy her as much as she would have expected.

"Why?"

"Because it is glaringly obvious to me that no good can possibly come of the two of you being in the same room."

"Because he hates me."

With a sigh, Rhaegar set his goblet on the desk he had been lingering near. "Because you hate each other."

"You are wrong. I had never even met Jon Connington before Moat Cailin, while he has apparently held me in the high regard of being responsible for your death for the past eleven years." Here she paused and looked down to the dregs in the bottom of her cup. "And I suppose Arthur Dayne was of much the same opinion."

"It does not matter what they believe."

"Doesn't it?"

The only sounds to follow for a long while were the crackling and snapping of the kindling he'd added to the fire.

Lyanna got up and took the liberty of refilling her glass.

"Arthur blames me," his voice finally broke through the silence. Not aggrieved or indignant, just accepting.

She set the pitcher of wine down, her gaze lingering on the rim of her goblet. When she did look towards him, she realized he'd been watching her and waiting for her reaction.

"Is that why he isn't here?"

"No."

The question had drawn him away, and she regretted asking it immediately. Lyanna felt the distance growing between them as keenly as she had the day he'd ridden from the Tower of Joy towards the Trident and his death.

She didn't know she'd been gripping it so tightly until the glass cracked beneath the pressure of her grasp and wine trickled down to the floor, splattering her skirts. Staring seemed all she was capable of as fat red drops slid down her wrist and dripped onto an ever growing stain in the rug.

The hands that closed around hers were warm by comparison and achingly familiar. They lifted away the broken glass and then trapped her fingers in the soft folds of a handkerchief, drying the spilled wine from them.

"You didn't cut yourself."

It was an observation, not an inquiry, but Lyanna was as helpless to respond as she might have been if asked to explain why the sun rose each day.

Rhaegar must have taken her reticence and refusal to meet his gaze as discomfort, because his hands released hers and he made to step back.

"Wait." The word burst forth abruptly, its urgency surprising even to her own ears. She couldn't stand the awkwardness and the forced civilities, not with him. She'd given him her innocence freely and eagerly all those years before, and if all that was left now were strained silences and guilt, then she knew exactly what she had to do. Sansa was in the Vale, and she needed whatever comfort an aunt she had never so much as laid eyes on could offer. It was only torture to remain here, in this state of limbo if there was nothing more left of what they had shared.

His hands had already fallen back to his sides, but it wasn't these Lyanna reached for. Slowly, she brought first one palm and then the other to rest against the front of the boiled leather jerkin he wore, and even through this and the tunic layered beneath she could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest. It was exhilarating.

If anyone had tried to tell her the effect simply being this near to a man could have on her before the Tourney at Harrenhal, she would have laughed in their face at the ridiculousness of it. But that was before Rhaegar. The first time he had caught her watching him, she'd been humiliated. He wasn't even on the field, he'd been standing apart from the lists with Arthur Dayne and some others, and his face had been lit up in a rare moment of lightheartedness by something someone had said. Everyone thought that the Dragon Prince's beauty lay in the way he seemed to wear his melancholy around his shoulders like a cloak, but when his violet eyes had met hers in that fleeting instant of laughter, Lyanna had not been able to breathe. She knew her cheeks flushed, she could feel them burning like a beacon of her embarrassment for all who cared to notice. But Rhaegar had only inclined his silver head a fraction and turned his attention back to his companions. She had wanted to be angry with herself for her foolish reaction afterwards, but for the brief time their gazes had locked she had never felt more alive.

Summoning what little strength of will remained to her, Lyanna looked up into those eyes again now. Though they were the same startling colour, they gave away none of the secrets of the mind to whom they belonged.

Rhaegar's face was a practiced mask of neutrality, and this wounded her far deeper than if she'd seen the same contempt so clearly burning in Jon's eyes for her reflected in their Targaryen counterparts. But it was worse than that.

"I'm going to the Vale. To Sansa," she informed him, and the singleness of purpose brought with it a measure of calmness she knew would not last.

He nodded, whether in acknowledgement or agreement she couldn't be sure and didn't much care. "I'll have a party assembled to escort you."

Lyanna's fingers dug into the toughened leather. "You told me once I was everything. Am I nothing more than a reminder of your failings now?"

"Look around you, Lyanna," Rhaegar insisted firmly and with finality, his gaze never wavering from her own. "There is nothing left. We can't go back."

"I wish I had never met you." A weight settled over her as those words, spoken in a whisper so quiet she had difficulty hearing them herself, broke free. They hung there in the air, in the small amount of space separating his body from hers. For eleven year she had not thought those words, and now suddenly she felt them in every bone, every muscle, with every fiber of her being.

If he was afflicted by the statement, he hid it well. The only reaction Lyanna could detect as he stood regarding her was a sort of grim validation, as though he had been anticipating things would come to this all along. As though it had been inevitable.

She was startled by Rhaegar's calloused fingers when they brushed along her cheek, and then irate. Something of her anger must have translated to her expression, because the moment before his lips found hers, she saw his half-smile. And then her eyes closed automatically and she saw nothing, but felt everything.

Lyanna knew what that kiss meant, knew it was goodbye, and it twisted her insides into excruciating knots. Because even though she knew, she couldn't stop the quickening of her heartbeat. She couldn't pull back and she couldn't push him away. Her hands had closed around fistfuls of leather, and they wouldn't release it.

"I hate you," she breathed the second his mouth receded enough that she was able.

His hand slid around to the back of her neck, and she could tell he had not drawn back far when he exhaled and it fanned hot against her face. Beginning at her chin, his lips left a searing trail of kisses all the way up her jaw and to the sensitive skin behind her ear, where her pulse thrummed wildly. From there he worked downwards, teeth grazing along her throat so that every swallow became a struggle, every intake of air bringing him closer to the bodice of her gown, which Lyanna now found uncomfortably constricting. Her chest heaved against the straining fabric and beneath his mouth.

It was all wrong, but it was all so real. Too real. Nothing she had imagined or dreamt in those eleven years could have prepared her for this. She was overwhelmed and she was suffocating.

Leaning back, she attempted to escape, to regain at least one sense that was not filled with Rhaegar, but the strong set of hands at her back prevented her from moving more than a few inches. It took Lyanna a second to realize what was happening, and then it was too late. She heard the material tear and felt it slip off her shoulders, but his arms pinned the dress to her sides, preventing it from sliding all the way down.

Lyanna dragged several full breaths of air into her lungs as her eyes fluttered open in relief.

Rhaegar was regarding her, his indigo irises darkened by the intense desire she was minutely aware he was only just controlling.

She forced her cramping fingers to let go of the jerkin. As she mitigated her breathing they shakily traveled upward until they skimmed his hair and threaded themselves through the pale strands, prompting him to lower his head.

"Tell me this is nothing," she challenged softly.

His eyes shut, but that mattered little.

Pressing her forehead to his, she allowed their lips to barely graze. "Rhaegar."

"You know I can't," came the strangled reply.

Lyanna's mouth could not close the minuscule distance to his quickly enough, and she was greeted by a carnal groan released from somewhere deep in his throat even as he crushed her to his chest. Their tongues began a familiar back-and-forth duel for control, breaths mingling together. But the contact wasn't enough, and she knew he'd recognized this as well from the way he suddenly seized the torn gown and yanked it down over her torso. Disentangling her fingers from his silver hair, she tugged her arms free of the clinging fabric, shivering as it drifted down to pool at her feet.

And all the while their lips never parted.

When they next revisited the jerkin, Lyanna's hands made swift work of the metal clasps that held it closed, but something else was keeping it from sliding off of his shoulders. Her fingers had to search all the way down to his hips before they discovered the problem lay with his swordbelt. She wasn't sure if the blade which hung from it meant anything to him, but he didn't seem overly upset when it thudded to the floor.

In fact, Rhaegar was preoccupied with the newly exposed skin her thin shift was giving him access to, his own hands completing a thorough exploration of her back. He did, however, pause to shrug the leather garment off before his thumbs continued their route along her ribcage, delving underneath the shift to brush across the undersides of her breasts and cause a faltering inhale.

After some frustrated moments spent trying to loosen the lacing at the collar while his fingers traced patterns lower and lower over her abdomen, Lyanna finally drew the tunic up and over his head, breaking their heated kiss. Her breath hitched as she took him in, his shoulders not broad but well-developed and tapering down to a narrow waist. His chest was no longer the perfect expanse of smooth skin over lean muscles that she remembered. She lifted a hand to run down from his collarbone to his navel, and along the way it encountered both the raised flesh of scars long healed over and the sharp angles of cracked and misshapen ribs. Robert's hammer had made a ruin of his entire left side between nipple and hipbone, the damage hard to behold even now, eleven years after the fact.

Rhaegar's hands had stilled, his entire body tensing as she touched the area so that she wondered if it didn't still cause him pain. His eyes were open again and pensive as she raised her chin to meet their stare.

"Were you expecting me to be mortified?"

He couldn't have responded should he have wanted to, because the query was followed directly by her teeth as they nibbled his lower lip.

Flattening both palms against chest, Lyanna guided him backwards slowly, stepping out of the fabric puddled around her ankles as she moved. She gave a firm nudge when his heel struck the edge of the only substantial piece of furniture in the pavilion apart from the desk, and he lurched rather unceremoniously back onto the bed. She could hardly help the smirk that lifted one corner of her mouth as she knelt to remove his boots.

Levering an elbow beneath him, Rhaegar sat up and studied her with a furrowed brow. "I've never known what to expect from you."

"It galls you, doesn't it?" she quipped when she'd finished with the task. Her fingers slid up his calves, over his knees.

"It unsettles me," he amended. When he reached for her, Lyanna leant in, their mouths colliding again ardently. His hair fell forward, the interwoven scents of pine and smoke and sweat intoxicating as it tickled her neck.

Her hands crept ever higher along his thighs until they closed around her, and utterly trapped, she issued an impatient huff. She could feel him smiling his amusement against her lips, but one sharp nip from her teeth soon saw her freed. Lyanna rose up from the floor and hitched the shift's hem up past her knees as she stepped over his legs. Straddling him, she settled herself in his lap.

Rhaegar's fingers were swift to pick up their perusal of her body, slipping the flimsy fabric they came across down over her shoulders and clearing a path for the ministrations of his tongue and teeth. Every inch of skin they covered felt as though it had been scorched, tingling and burning in their wake.

Lyanna sucked in a lungful of air when he began to pay particular attention to her breasts. Her arms encircled his neck to hold him close and she arched her back, the action bringing her up against the evidence of his obvious arousal. Fighting through the delicious haze of pleasure his mouth was creating, she rotated her hips experimentally and was rewarded with a moan caught somewhere between agony and ecstasy. While his lips continued a halting assault, she could tell by the way his fingers dug into her thighs that every grinding movement she made against him was bringing him closer to madness.

With a muffled oath his arm wound around her waist and he twisted, collapsing onto the bed with her body pinned beneath his. They were both panting now, but every exhalation of Rhaegar's hot breath puffed over her peaked nipples, making her whimper for more. He was busy dragging the shift the rest of the way down her torso, and sat back to draw it over her hips and off. His hands skimmed the length of the inside of each leg after it had joined the rest of their attire on the floor.

While he'd been preoccupied with the shift Lyanna had unlaced his trousers, though by this point her fingers felt slow and numb and it took far longer than she preferred, so that when his weight once again pressed down on her the only article of clothing separating them still clung to his hips. His kisses were dizzying, but Lyanna determinedly clawed the offending garment down until he finally kicked them off and there was nothing between them.

As he settled over her again, Rhaegar was shaking with the effort of holding back. He brushed his lips against the fading bruises at her temple, choking back another groan when her warm thigh grazed his hip.

"Rhaegar," she pleaded with him desperately. Her lips hovered next to his ear, and when he at last pushed inside her the sheer bliss of the sigh that escaped them nearly undid him.

The steady pace he set was merciless for them both, and the more Lyanna's body writhed beneath his the more impossible it became to keep up. Her luxurious sighs soon turned to breathy whispers of his name which coupled with her biting nails to drive him closer and closer to the limits of his control. When her legs wrapped around him, drawing him deeper inside her with every stroke, urging him on, he lost all command over his body. Her cry of release was the only he heard before his senses were overflowing with Lyanna and he was drowning in her very essence.

"I hate you," she was murmuring even as she caressed his shuddering body.

But Rhaegar wasn't surprised or shocked, only exhausted. Burying his face in her dark locks, he struggled to regain the use of his quivering muscles.

"I hate you." Her voice was breaking, betraying her lack of conviction in the words.

She wanted to hate him, and this he knew. Because even though it wasn't possible for him to be touching more of her, even though he was inside her and there was nothing either of them could have done to bring them closer together, the entire Seven Kingdoms still sat squarely between them.

"I love you."


	19. Chapter 19

The sun's first rays were beginning to touch the horizon, turning the murky darkness of night to a more promising shade of dawn. Much of the encampment was yet quiet with the men still wrapped tightly in their bedrolls, but Jon knew where he would find whom he sought and for the moment it didn't bother him. In fact, he was looking forward to it.

He didn't give pause outside the unguarded pavilion. Stepping through the entrance, his eyes fell first on the various garments strewn about the floor, before travelling to the bed. All he could see of Rhaegar was his back and perfect fall of silver hair, and little more of Lyanna, so that he realized the Dragon Prince was laying over top of his She-Wolf. That hardly surprised him, but the relaxed positioning of Rhaegar's body and his deep, even breathing did. Because not once in the eleven years since they'd been exiled had Jon witnessed his friend sleep without the constant torment of dreams he would never speak of upon awakening.

In the brazier the embers had long since turned cold, but Jon felt a stifling warmth overcoming him the longer he stood in their presence. And for a fleeting moment, he hesitated.

"I trust you haven't come here only to stare," Lyanna's cool voice prompted him. He could not see her face, but her alertness told him she'd been awake far longer than he'd been there.

Rhaegar, however, hadn't, and her question set him to stirring slowly.

"There have been ravens," he explained, irritation at requiring an excuse to seek out his Silver Prince seeping into his tone. It had not been so _before_ she had been brought to him.

Jon rued his decision not to have ridden himself of her now. The men were whispering ill omens of their reunion and they were not wrong. It had been too long that they'd been stationed at the Twins, sitting idle. They needed to push further south and leave the She-Wolf licking her wounds, far behind them and far removed from Rhaegar's thoughts. And he finally had come upon the means to accomplish both.

When the all too familiar violet gaze turned their ire on him, this time he was prepared. "Stannis has taken Winterfell from the Ironborn."

Lyanna made to get up, but it was clear that Rhaegar held her firmly beneath the blankets. Instead she glared at Jon, as though this were completely his doing, and he honestly found himself wishing it was.

"When?" Rhaegar asked.

"Perhaps two weeks past. He has sent riders to White Harbour declaring his intention to rid the North of its infestation, no doubt wheedling for Manderly's support and that of any others with fighting men to spare."

"And Bolton? What does he intend to do about him?" Lyanna demanded.

"Of Lord Bolton no mention is made, I'm afraid."

"Has Manderly sent any aid?" Rhaegar questioned, his irritation growing with every exchange between Lyanna and Jon.

"Not yet."

"Manderly is sworn to the North."

"My lady, it appears that with his capture of what remains of Winterfell and your army decimated, Stannis _is_ the North now." Jon could barely conceal his amusement.

"A Southron Lord will never rule the North," Lyanna hissed, her contempt burning brightly behind those gray eyes.

Her mistake was realized too late, though the troubled expression which touched Rhaegar's features remained only fleetingly.

A rift was opening between them before Jon's eyes.

"We've also had word from Arthur. They've taken Bitterbridge and cut clean through the Tyrell supply lines to King's Landing. Highgarden is under siege from both sides, caught between the Dornish forces that came up through the mountain passes and your sister's Unsullied and Freedmen. Prince Doran's son travels with them, as her betrothed."

It was Lyanna who broke the stunned silence first, clutching the covers to herself.

"Your sister…?"

"The Golden Company is growing restless, Rhaegar. Highgarden is well provisioned to hold out under a long siege, far longer than it will take for reinforcements to be sent from Casterly Rock and the capitol. Daenerys's army will be trapped in the Reach, fighting on three fronts."

"Gather Strickland and his commanders."

With a perfunctory bow, Jon left the turmoil he had created inside the pavilion, feeling satisfied. The sun had breached the horizon, shining warmly on his face as he stepped into its light.

It was going to be a good day.

* * *

Lyanna drew the blankets closer as Rhaegar rose and began to dress, his mind quite clearly far away. She felt a numbness settle over her as the moments passed by and she watched his automatic movements, his distraction absolute.

"Were you going to tell me?" she finally asked him.

"No. There was no reason to." When he looked towards her, his focus slowly returned, though she could tell there were many and more things warring for attention in his mind. "I left Daenerys with Arthur when we sailed, they were to follow shortly afterwards, but a storm swept us North and laid waste to much of the fleet. We didn't make land where we had intended, I thought Jon and the others lost at first. I had no way of knowing whether Arthur and Daenerys had made the crossing or been taken by a storm as we had, and even if they hadn't, they would have been sailing for the Stormlands to meet us. There was no word of what had befallen them until now."

"You thought them dead," she realized, taken aback.

"I've been waiting."

"It seems your wait is over."

It was plain that nothing had changed, that eleven years had not managed to strip down the barrier which had stood between them. Which would always stand between them.

"Go to Sansa. She needs you."

"Winterfell needs me," Lyanna pointed out as she gathered what little dignity remained to her.

"You have no hope of taking it back from Stannis, Lyanna. Your host and your lords were massacred. There are not enough fighting men in the North to drive out both the Ironborn and the force Stannis took from Dragonstone. Are you going to ask those who are left to die for you as well?"

Rhaegar's words were meant to make her see reason, she knew, but there was no reason left for her to see. It had died along with Ned, Catelyn, and their children.

"Unless it is your intention to lend aid, I don't see what business it is of yours what I intend to do. You have a war of your own to wage, I believe."

"You know I don't have the numbers to split my forces. Go to Sansa in the Vale, she has no one but you now. If I manage to take back the Iron throne there will be time enough then to deal with the Ironborn, Stannis, and Bolton. Winterfell will be yours again."

Lyanna levelled him with an icy stare. "If you manage to take back the Iron throne, Winterfell will be _yours_ again."

"Lyanna." Rhaegar's fingers wavered from snatching up his cloak where it hung across the back of the chair at the desk, and he crossed the pavilion instead.

Edging backward on the bed as he sat down, she raised her chin defiantly. "I will not stand by and do nothing."

"And Sansa?" he prompted her.

"Her family is gone. She deserves, at least, to have a home."

Long fingers brushed her tangled hair back from her face, causing Lyanna's muscles to tense. "Her family is not gone. Not yet."

"Please, go." She closed her eyes as his lips pressed warm against her temple. The feather mattress shifted when he stood and she heard each step that brought him closer to the doorway. "I'm not waiting for you this time, Rhaegar," she said, forcing her voice to carry clearly and without breaking.

When no response came she looked towards the exit, but she was alone in the pavilion.

A chill crept over Lyanna slowly in his absence and she drew the blankets more securely around her shoulders, shivering as she got up. She left her shift and ruined gown where they lay on the floor, searching instead inside the trunk at the foot of the bed. Rhaegar's scent enveloped her as she hauled out articles of his clothing which would be far more practical than her own for travelling and hastily drew them on. Nothing fit snugly, but with the aid of a spare swordbelt and a heavy cloak, she managed to make it all work. The garments were of good quality but plain enough so as not to draw unwanted attention, and she was grateful that Rhaegar wasn't of the taste to garishly display his house sigil all over everything he wore as so many nobles were wont to do.

There was no time to plan anything, and if she had stopped to try to come up with one she feared she might lose her nerve. Outside in the encampment surrounding the Twins a flurry of activity had picked up by the time she had finished. She guessed that marching orders had been swiftly given, following on the heels of the new information Jon had received.

With one last look around, Lyanna moved to the desk. Maps crowded across its surface, and she rolled up the two which seemed as though they might be of the most assistance to her. In lifting one she caught sight of a short blade and grabbed it, tucking it into the empty swordbelt. Rhaegar had probably been using it to open letters, but if she did manage to slip out of the encampment undetected, it would only improve her very slim chances of making it to Greywater March alive if she actually carried a weapon.

Drawing up the staked canvas, Lyanna crouched and scrambled out of the pavilion from a corner she knew to face away from the majority of the other tents nearby and where, hopefully, any guards Rhaegar had left to watch over her would not be looking. She straightened hurriedly and drew up the cloak's hood, having braided her hair back out of sight.

All around her the Golden Company worked in a practiced and efficient manner to tear down and pack up their shelters and other equipment. As she strode across the muddy courtyard she kept her head low. The portcullis was still lowered this early in the day, and Lyanna chewed the inside of her cheek in agitation as she cast about for another way to escape. From behind her a shout rang out and she heard the cry carry surely from one end of the bailey to the other, breaking into the regular din of dismantling the encampment. She glanced over her shoulder, spotting the dark smoke which billowed up from Rhaegar's pavilion and had to admit that while it had been done as a distraction, setting the fire had also brought with it a small measure of satisfaction.

"You, here."

Lyanna nearly stumbled when a fist connected with her chest, shoving at her a handful of reins she was obliged to snatch up while ducking her head in trepidation. She waited, but the sellsword had rushed past her along with not a few others, trying to keep order amidst the growing discord. The flames were well on the way to being put out already, she noticed. Tossing the reins back over the head of the horse she had been intrusted with, Lyanna clutched a fistful of coarse mane and vaulted up into the saddle. She wheeled the mount around just as the portcullis began to lurch upward to admit a scouting party and drove hard toward the gates, scattering men from her path. Curses followed after her, soon replaced by terse orders for her to be stopped.

Her heart was pounding so forcefully against her ribs that Lyanna felt it might explode at any moment as she noticed with a sense of dread that swords were being drawn at her approach. An arrow streaked past and she crouched lower in the saddle, directing her steed wide of the armed men, though this lengthened the distance to the portcullis and her freedom.

Pain lanced up her leg as another horse crashed into her own, trapping her calf in the stirrup between the two racing mounts. Her arm was seized in an iron grip, wrenching her sideways, and would have torn her from the saddle if it weren't for her pinned leg.

Releasing the reins, Lyanna fumbled with her free hand for the dagger in her belt, and drew it out the moment her fingers closed around the worn hilt. She slashed towards her harasser wildly as they bore down on the gates, still only half raised. As suddenly as the hand had grabbed her it fell away from her arm and she had to scrabble not to lose her seat when her horse broke free of the other, charging beneath the portcullis and straight through the bewildered scouting party.


	20. Chapter 20

"We need to move now."

"If we strike for King's Landing, we leave our flank open to attack, Princess. Highgarden could yet break the siege and we know that reinforcements are marching from Casterly Rock."

"You said yourself we can't afford a long siege, and if we stay we will still be trapped between Highgarden's walls and the Lannister press."

"If we go any retreat back into Dorne will be cut off."

"It isn't my intention to retreat."

"Daenerys-"

"What would you have me do? Sit here until the snows come waiting for my brother? Our supplies will run out long before he arrives, which is exactly what the Tyrells and Lannisters are counting on. King's Landing is weak, a boy-king sits the throne, and we have had word of uprisings."

"Rumours, with no way of accounting for their validity. The wreckage of Stannis Baratheon's fleet still lies at the bottom of Shipbreaker Bay, does that seem like the work of the weak to you? Rhaegar will come."

"And if he does not?"

"He will."

Any further argument was cut short by a screech Arthur knew could only come from one of the dragons, followed by the panicked shouts of men. Sweeping aside the canvas flap he stepped out into the cool night air, his hand already closed around the hilt of the sword Daenerys had gifted him in Dorne.

All around the tent men were scrambling for either cover or weapons. A wild glow illuminated the otherwise dark camp and it was in that direction Arthur moved. Pushing through the commotion, he could hear an inhuman keening the closer he came to the dancing light, and the press of bodies opened up before him.

In the enormous shadow of Rhaegal's bulk a torch was twisting and flailing, lurching to and fro madly, and it was from this the wailing originated. Arthur's gut clenched at the realization of what he was seeing.

Doran's son had been fascinated with the dragons from the first time he'd lain his dark eyes on them, much to Arthur's chagrin. Daenerys had been sweet enough while they'd yet been in Sunspear, but the moment they'd set sail she'd turned on the hapless Dornish Prince an uncaring aloofness that had Arthur chafing not to reproach her. But whatever he might have said would have only fueled the spiteful Targaryen Princess to show Quentyn even less interest. Arthur was well aware she still had not forgiven him for proposing the marriage pact as a means of gaining Dorne's support in winning back the Iron throne, despite naming him her captain. It had been a deliberate and calculated compromise on her part, and while he had the command of their force in title, he knew that it was with their Mother of Dragons the Unsullied and Freedmen's allegiance really lay. And Daenerys took pleasure in questioning his orders and decisions at most every opportunity. His authority counted for nothing, but at least he understood this.

While Daenerys preserved complete control over her army, it was the dragons with whom she was losing power over and yet refused to admit. The beasts were growing at an alarming rate with the plentiful and unrestricted prey they now enjoyed access to. The problem lay in that Rhaegal, Viserion, and Drogon did not always differentiate between the enemy and the men fighting under their mistress. They had acquired a taste for human flesh, and the livery which covered it was of little and less concern to a dragon. The more they fed, the more they grew. And the more they grew, the more they hungered. The tenuous hold Daenerys had maintained during their voyage across the Narrow Sea and while in Dorne was fading fast.

"Rhaegal!"

The cry was enough to jerk Arthur from his stunned paralysis.

"Archers!" The command was hoarsely given, his voice nearly failing. He glimpsed the horrified expressions of the men in the flashing light as it wheeled before them, shocked into the same inaction he had been. Archibald Yronwood and Gerris Drinkwater were among them. "Archers! Take aim!"

This time at least some of those who had not run for shelter in the presence of the dragon's malice stirred, raising weapons as though in a daze.

"No! Stop!" Daenerys was screaming as she flew into Arthur's line of sight, throwing herself between Rhaegal and the gathered men.

Behind her Quentyn Martell's morbid capering had ceased and his last howl died on lips that had long since melted away. Crumpling to the ground, his body twitched, and the flames which had consumed him began to gutter out.

Arthur felt bile rise in his throat. "Loose!"

Bowstrings thrummed all around him. For a moment the sound of both Daenerys' and Rhaegal's shrieks blended together.

Arthur could see the glint of the arrows as they arched through the air and he launched himself forward, knocking the Targaryen Princess to the ground with such force that it took his breath away.

Rhaegal spread his leathery wings in a rush, sending up a fine spray of sand as he lifted from the ground.

"Again!" Arthur urged frantically. Beneath him Daenerys was struggling like something rabid, and her nails scored his cheek, narrowly missing an eye. Rolling back onto his heels, he captured her wrists and hauled them both to their feet as another volley of arrows streaked toward the emerald scaled dragon.

"Rhaegal, dracarys!" Daenerys cried out before Arthur could clamp a hand over her mouth.

Cursing, he shoved her toward a dray still laden with supplies. Almost before they'd ducked behind the cart a blast of heat like nothing Arthur had ever felt before seared past his shoulder and the night sky brightened as though with the coming of the dawn. A chorus of death cries went up, forcing him to have to shout into Daenerys' face to be heard despite their proximity.

"Stop this madness before you kill us all!"

It was only by sheer will that Arthur did not shudder at the blaze he saw burning behind her lavender stare. No trace of Rhaegar was reflected there, only Aerys.

* * *

Lyanna was half delirious with pain and hunger. Her ankle was a swollen mass which could no longer bear her weight, hanging uselessly in the stirrup for the most part as she rode. She could not feel her toes, but every other muscle in her body was throbbing from the long hours spent in the saddle and nights spent curled up on the cold, hard ground. She didn't dare traverse the Kingsroad, instead giving it a wide berth and keeping to the coarse brush she had been so loath to tackle when attempting to escape Bolton. It had been the cause of her failure then, but was now her sanctuary. The going was far slower and brutal on her poor mount, but she could not afford a run-in with the bandits which now held free reign over the thoroughfare. It was no longer safe for any to travel without the protection of an army at their back.

Shivering, Lyanna lurched forward when her horse stumbled, barely able to right the animal. It would only be a few days more before the beast would be able to carry her no further, weak as it was with malnourishment. What little grazing there was, was tough and offered no nutritional value and she had been pushing hard, asking too much of the horse every day. But she had to get to Greywater Watch, and if her mount died before she reached the cranogmen, then she would in all likelihood perish right along with it. As much as it pained her to do so, she had no choice but to run the animal into the ground.

Suddenly pricking its ears in a show of more livelihood than it had displayed in days, the horse froze and snorted uneasily. Lyanna listened, but she could not hear whatever had spooked her mount and tried to urge it on, an attempt which bore fruitless results. Her breath was fogging around her as she drove her good heel into the animal's side in frustration.

"We do not have time for this," she grated.

Starting, the horse jolted back and Lyanna hit the ground with a yelp as her ankle was jarred badly. A crashing through the scrub told her, her mount was gone and she lay for a few moments in silence with despair overwhelming her.

When she finally pushed herself up to sit it was to take in a pair of luminous golden eyes which watched her balefully from the darkness. Lyanna's breath caught, and in the time it took her to blink the creature was gone. She remained still for several achingly long seconds before rising the rest of the way to her unsteady feet. Nothing stirred and the only sound she heard was her own ragged breathing.

Turning a slow circle, Lyanna attempted to get her bearings while not putting weight on her injured foot. Her fingers felt numbly for the maps tucked into her belt and she drew first one and then the other out, unravelling the yellowed vellum and studying them with growing despondency. Greywater Watch, if she was lucky, was yet a few good day's ride north, perhaps even a week away, and much longer by foot.

Somewhere in the distance the horse gave a bloodcurdling squeal and the maps drifted from Lyanna's grasp as she fumbled instead for the dagger. She could hardly see for the mist puffing from her mouth with every exhale and swallowed, willing her hands to stop shaking.

A branch snapped, and she whirled to meet the golden stare again, twisting her ankle in the process and issuing a hiss at the answering pang which shot up her leg. Through the haze of pain Lyanna saw the beast step out of the shadows. Moonlight touched its thick gray coat and glistened off the stark white fangs revealed as it drew its thin lips back into a snarl.

She had never seen a direwolf before, but she had believed she heard them howling in the forest outside Winterfell as a child. Old Nan's tales had commonly featured the creatures, though it was commonly believed by the Northerners that they'd been hunted to extinction, at least south of the Wall. Perhaps they had been, but Lyanna had no doubt that she faced one now. It was more than twice the size of any wolf pelt she'd ever witnessed hung above a hearth as a trophy.

Sinking down onto her knees, she let the short blade tumble from her freezing fingers.

The night erupted into a chilling melody of mournful howls and Lyanna closed her eyes.


End file.
